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JOSIAH    STRONG 


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THE  TIMES  AND  YOUNG   MEN 


By  JOSIAH   STRONG 

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The    Times 

and 

Young  Men 


By 

Josiah    Strong 

-, 

Author  of  "  Our  Country,"  "  The  New  Era," 

"The  Twentieth- Century  City," 

"  Expansion,"  etc. 

(EIGHTH   THOUSAND) 


'  Can  ye  not  discern  the  signs  of  the  times  ?  " 

— JESUS  CHRIST. 


New   York 
The  Baker  and  Taylor  Company 

33-37  East  Seventeenth  Street 
Union  Square,   North 


Copyright,   1901. 

BY 

THE   BAKER  &  TAYLOR  CO. 


ROBERT    DRUMMOND,    PRINTER,    Nrw   YORK. 


THIS    BOOK    IS 

DEDICATED 
TO    THE  YOUNG    MEN*S    CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATIONS 

OF    THE    UNITED    STATES, 

WHOSE    DISCERNMENT    OF    THE    SIGNS   OF 

THE    TIMES    HAS    ENABLED    THEM 

TO    DO    SO    NOBLE   A    WORK 

FOR    YOUNG    MEN. 


CONTENTS 

i 

PAGE 

A  WORD  WITH  THE  READER 13 

This  book  an  outgrowth  of  the  writer's 
personal  experience.  His  Puritan  training. 
Rigid  views  felt  the  shock  of  theological  and 
social  changes.  Organizing  ideas.  A  new 
interpretation  of  life.  What  the  new  inter- 
pretation did  for  him. 

Value  of  something  to  "tie  to."  Our 
great  need  of  anchorage  is  when  we  are  at 
our  worst.  The  writer  hopes  to  give  to  young 
men  a  few  immovable  convictions. 

II 
A  TIDE  IN  THE  AFFAIRS  OF  MEN 22 

Conflicting  tendencies  and  resulting  doubt 
and  confusion.  Attitude  of  old  men  and 
young  toward  changes.  A  common  cause  of 
failure  and  of  success.  Carlyle  quoted.  The 
undercurrent  of  civilization.  The  nineteenth 
century  characterized  by  change.  An  illus- 
tration Two  simple  but  far-reaching  causes 
of  change,  one  in  the  physical  world  and  one 
in  the  world  of  ideas. 


CONTENTS 
III 

PAGE 

THE    GREAT    CHANGE    IN    THE    PHYSICAL 
WORLD 27 

Significance  of  the  way  in  which  a  people 
get  their  living.  Grazing,  agriculture,  com- 
merce, manufactures.  The  industrial  revolu- 
tion. How  caused.  Nature's  reservoir  of 
power.  Results  of  substituting  mechanical 
for  muscular  power. 

Great  increase  of  wealth.  Problem  of  pro- 
duction solved.  Possibility  of  universal 
abundance. 

The  organization  of  industry.  The  age  of 
homespun.  Centralization  of  power  by  the 
steam-engine.  Division  of  labor  and  result- 
ing interdependence. 

A  social  revolution.  Family  life  enlarging 
to  community,  national,  and  world  life.  The 
morning  paper  a  world  contribution  to  our 
daily  life.  As  relations  have  become  many, 
complex,  and  far-reaching,  so  have  obliga- 
tions. 

The  fundamental  movement  of  the  times. 

IV 

THE    GREAT   CHANGE   IN    THE    WORLD   OF 
IDEAS 39 

The  universe  God's  organ.  Two  banks  oj 
keys.  Southey  quoted. 

Progress  in  the  world  of  ideas  and  its  cause. 
The  scientific  method.  Its  gift  of  knowledge. 
Much  to  unlearn.  The  breaking  up  of  the< 
ology. 

Difference  between  theology  and  religion. 
Linnaeus  and  his  work.  Fundamental  facts 
of  Christianity.  Increasing  knowledge  of  the 
facts.  New  interpretation  of  the  facts. 

8 


CONTENTS 

PACR 

The  undercurrent  in  the  world  of  ideas. 
Growth  of  public  opinion.  The  social  con- 
science. The  prefix  pan.  Recognition  of 
common  interest ;  labor ;  capital.  Conscious- 
ness of  solidarity.  The  two  great  movements 
in  the  physical  world  and  in  the  world  of 
ideas  one  and  the  same. 

A  new  conception  of  Christianity.  Christ's 
point  of  view.  The  church's  point  of  view. 
The  kingdom  of  God.  The  social  ideal  of 
Jesus.  The  comprehensiveness  of  the  kingdom. 

V 
THREE  GREAT  LAWS  WHICH  NEVER  CHANGE    62 

7.   The  Law  of  Service 
Its  universality.     Illustrated  ;  dust ;  water. 
Circles  of  service.     Apparent  exceptions.    In 
the  spiritual  world.      Noblest  illustration  in 
man.     Service  a  Christian  law. 

VI 

THREE  GREAT  LAWS  WHICH  NEVER  CHANGE 
(Continued) 73 

77.  The  Law  of  Self-giving  or  Sacrifice 
The  stern  benevolence  of  nature.  Evolu- 
tion. The  law  below  man  and  above  him. 
Applied  to  man.  Promotion  through  sacri- 
fice. The  circle  of  sacrifice.  Man's  refusal 
to  give  himself.  Sacrifice  a  Christian  law. 
Misunderstanding  of  the  law. 

VII 
THREE  GREAT  LAWS  WHICH  NEVER  CHANGE — 

(Continued) 83 

III.   The  Law  of  Lov>, 
Love  makes  service  and  sacrifice  possible 
to  free  man.      The  struggle  for  life.      The 

9 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

struggle  for  the  life  of  others.  Prof.  Drum- 
mond  quoted.  Illustration  from  the  mud- 
wasp.  Prof.  Shaler  quoted.  Development 
of  the  social  instinct.  Nature's  new  plan. 
Vertebrates  and  articulates  compared.  De- 
velopment of  the  power  of  thought.  Family 
love  broadened  into  patriotism.  Garibaldi. 
Natural  love.  Disinterested  love.  Such 
love  eternal  life.  Life  transforming  death. 
Love  the  fundamental  law  of  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

VIII 

THE  THREE  GREAT  LAWS  APPLIED  TO  THE 
SOCIAL  PROBLEM 98 

The  air  full  of  interrogation-points.  Social 
problems  pertain  to  our  relations.  The  Social 
Question  denned.  Revolutionists.  Burke 
quoted.  Social  laws  vital.  Spencer  quoted. 
Service  a  law  of  life.  Sacrifice  a  law  of  life. 
A  diagnosis  of  social  disease.  Illustrations. 
Love  makes  the  laws  of  service  and  sacrifice 
operative. 

IX 

THE  THREE  GREAT  LAWS  APPLIED  TO  PER- 
SONAL PROBLEMS — THE  USE  OF  TIME — THE 
BODY — EDUCATION . , 115 

Love,  service,  and  sacrifice  "convertible." 
The  use  of  time.      Time  never  so  valuable 
as  now.      Idlers.      Busy  idlers.     Law  of  ser- 
vice applied  to  twenty-four  hours  in  the  day. 
Largest  outcome  of  a  lifetime. 

The  body.  Misconception  of  the  body. 
New  Testament  use  of  the  word  "flesh." 
Good  working  rule  for  the  body.  Athletics. 
Nervous  force  versus  muscular  strength.  The 
wisest  physical  training. 

10 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

Education.  Why  gain  an  education? 
Means  and  ends.  The  supreme  end.  "  Know- 
ledge for  the  sake  of  knowledge." 


THE  THREE  GREAT  LAWS  APPLIED  TO  PER- 
SONAL PROBLEMS  (Continued)  —  OCCUPA- 
TION—AMUSEMENTS— EXPENDITURE 137 

The  parasite.  Three  varieties  of  social 
parasites.  Isaac  Watts  quoted.  Choice  of 
an  occupation  to  be  governed  by  the  law  of 
service.  George  Peabody.  William  McKinley. 
The  way  to  get  a  larger  place.  One's  occupa- 
tion and  the  kingdom  of  God.  "  Making  a 
rope  for  the  kingdom." 

Amusements.  The  need  of  play.  The 
philosophy  of  play.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  and 
Prof.  Stowe.  The  law  of  pleasure. 

Expenditure.  The  law  of  service  thrice 
applicable  to  money.  Voluntary  poverty. 
The  law  of  tithes.  Application  of  the  law  of 
service. 

XI 

THE  THREE  GREAT  LAWS  APPLIED  TO  PER- 
SONAL PROBLEMS  (Continued)— RELIGION...  163 

How  important  is  religious  belief  ?  The- 
ology of  the  Apostles.  Perversions  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus.  Loveless  and  useless  sacri- 
fice, or  Asceticism.  "Simon  the  Stylite." 
Sacrifice  should  always  serve.  Asceticism 
not  Christian  sacrifice. 

Love  devoid  of  service  and  sacrifice,  or 
Mysticism.  Such  love  not  Christian. 

"  Service  "  devoid  of  love  and  sacrifice,  or 
Ritualism.  The  most  precious  things  given 
away.  Lowell  quoted.  "  Services  "  which  are 

II 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

"  held  "  instead  of  rendered.  Weakness  of 
the  church  to-day.  Why  twice  as  many 
young  women  in  the  church  as  young  men  ? 
The  intelligent  application  of  the  three 
laws  of  Jesus  realizes  the  highest  possibilities 
of  life.  Jonathan  Edwards  quoted.  Con- 
secration to  God  for  the  service  of  man. 

XII 

THE  INSPIRATION  OF  THE  TWENTIETH-CEN- 
TURY OUTLOOK 192 

r.  The  influence  of  the  industrial  revolu- 
tion. Gaining  control  of  natural  forces  re- 
leases vital  energy  for  the  development  of 
higher  sensibilities  and  the  power  of  thought. 
Increases  human  resources  indefinitely.  Pro- 
duction of  wealth.  Wealth  cannot  be  mon- 
opolized by  selfishness.  Increasing  endow- 
ment funds. 

2.  Influence  of  the  scientific  method.     Ef- 
fects of  increasing  knowledge.     The  national 
census.      A  new  philanthropy.      Evolution, 
the  method  of  social  progress. 

3.  Influence  of  the  new  social  ideal.     The 
perfection  of  individual  types.    Aristophanes 
quoted.      A  higher  organization  of  society. 
Increasing  intelligence.     Growing  altruism. 

4.  Influence  of  the  new  Christianity.     Old 
conception   illustrated    by    Bunyan.       Lord 
Shaftesbury  quoted. 

The  new  civilization  and  the  old.  The 
world's  evils  doomed.  God's  final  victory. 

12 


THE  TIMES  AND  YOUNG  MEN 


A  WORD    WITH   THE   READER 

YOUNG  men,  let  me  take  you  into  my 
confidence  by  speaking  frankly  out  of 
my  own  experience. 

My  Puritan  training — and  let  me  say  I 
am  thankful  for  it,  because  it  put  needed 
iron  into  my  blood — my  Puritan  training 
gave  me  individualistic  and  rather  severe 
ideas  of  life  and  of  religion.  My  rigid 
views  felt  the  shock  of  the  great  changes, 
theological  and  social,  which  have  taken 
13 


THE   TIMES  AND  YOUNG   MEN 

place  during  the  past  generation.  Broken 
loose  from  their  ancient  moorings,  men 
seemed  to  me  to  be  drifting.  New  views 
fostered  by  science  were  believed  to  be 
hostile  to  religion,  paralyzing  to  faith,  and 
demoralizing  to  conduct.  Impatience  of 
restraint  rather  than  love  of  truth  seemed 
to  inspire  the  attacks  on  many  beliefs 
which  the  fathers  held  sacred. 

When  would  these  changes  cease  ? 
How  much  of  the  old  structure  of  society 
and  of  belief  would  they  leave  standing  ? 
Were  there  any  great  certainties  left  ? 

Such  were  the  questions  which  troubled 
a  serious  mind  that  could  not  be  blind  to 
what  was  actually  taking  place. 

Gradually  I  got  hold  of  certain  or- 
ganizing ideas  which  interpreted  these 
changes.  Events  no  longer  seemed  to 
me  a  great  jumble.  They  became  full  of 
meaning  and  of  thrilling  interest,  and 


A   WORD   WITH   THE   READER 

constituted    a    mighty    movement,  pro- 
gressing in  orderly  fashion. 

I  had  reached  what  was  to  me  a  new 
interpretation  of  life,  and  I  cannot  begin 
to  tell  you  how  much  it  did  for  me.  It 
resolved  many  perplexities ;  it  wonder- 
fully widened  my  horizon,  and  increased 
my  interest  in  my  kind,  enabling  me  to 
say  with  Terence,  "  I  am  a  man,  and 
nothing  of  man  is  foreign  to  me  "  ;  it  gave 
to  me  a  lively  interest  in  everything  that 
promotes  civilization ;  it  confirmed  my 
faith  in  God's  government  of  the  world  ; 
it  strengthened  my  confidence  that 
Jesus  is  the  supreme  light  of  all  ages  ;  it 
humanized  religion  ;  it  enabled  me  to  see 
the  divine  workings  in  human  activities, 
and  thus  revealed  the  sacredness  of  the 
so-called  secular ;  it  showed  me  how 
every-day  commonplace  may  help  to 
work  out  God's  great  plans  for  humanity, 
15 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

thus  glorifying  the  ordinary  activities  of 
life  with  a  great  motive  ;  it  gave  to  me 
the  blessed  consciousness  of  being  a  co- 
worker  with  God,  thus  affording  a  con- 
stant inspiration,  together  with  the  glad 
confidence  of  ultimate  success. 

If  I  had  to  believe  that  the  sin  and 
misery  in  the  world  were  hopeless,  it 
would  take  the  heart  out  of  me.  I  could 
work,  but  I  should  work  like  a  galley- 
slave. 

Believing  as  I  now  do  that  the  sin  and 
degradation  and  sorrow  of  the  world  are 
all  doomed,  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
steadily  coming  among  men,  and  will  one 
day  surely  fill  the  earth,  and  believing 
that  I  can  in  some  small  measure  hasten 
its  coming,  I  am  inspired  with  patience 
to  wait  and  with  strength  to  work. 

Now  what  I   have  tried  to  do  in  the 

following  pages  is  to  give  you  this  con- 
16 


A   WORD   WITH   THE   READER 

ception  of  life.  I  am  quite  aware  that  I 
can  no  more  give  you  all  of  my  thought 
than  I  can  give  you  any  of  my  experience. 
If,  however,  I  succeed  in  putting  you  in 
possession  of  a  few  fundamental  princi- 
ples to  which  you  can  hold  all  your  life, 
I  shall  be  content. 

The  value  of  a  hitching-post  is  in  the 
fact  that  you  can  find  it  precisely  where 
you  leave  it.  A  principle  is  something 
to  "tie  to  "  because  it  does  not  change. 
When  you  have  laid  hold  of  a  principle, 
young  men,  you  will  know  where  to  find 
yourselves,  and  the  world  will  know 
where  to  find  you.  Tying  to  impulse  or 
to  mere  notion,  however  popular,  is  being 
bound  Mazeppa-like  to  a  wild  horse ; 
there  is  no  telling  where  you  will  be  to- 
morrow. 

We  all  have  our  varying  experiences, 
— times  when  we  are  at  our  best,  and 
17 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

again  times  when  we  are  at  our  worst ; 
and  it  is  the  latter  when  the  strain  comes 
on  character.  We  all  need  principles 
that  will  hold  then,  when  we  are  at  our 
worst. 

We  have  our  mountain-top  moments, 
when  vision  is  clear  and  wide,  and  it  is 
easy  to  see  straight  and  to  appraise 
things  at  their  true  value  ;  and  the  great 
realities,  which  are  intangible  and  which 
generally  we  cannot  get  hold  of,  now 
take  hold  of  us,  and  all  that  is  best  in  us 
becomes  alert  and  strong  ;  and  it  seems 
to  us  that  we  can  never  again  be  mastered 
by  a  mean  motive.  And  then  gradually 
and  all  unconsciously  we  sink  back  to 
the  old  level,  the  vision  becomes  only 
a  memory,  and  life  is  again  mere  com- 
monplace ;  our  horizon  has  contracted  ; 
the  realities  of  life  are  again  the  things 

which   can   be  weighed  and  measured, 
18 


A   WORD   WITH    THE   READER 

bought  and  sold,  and  perhaps  the  cry  of 
appetite  or  passion  drowns  the  "still 
small  voice,"  and  our  lower  self  has 
gained  the  upper  hand. 

It  is  at  such  times  that  we  need  deep 
convictions,  to  which  our  principles  can 
grapple  as  to  immovable  rocks.  If  at 
such  times  we  can  say  to  ourselves,  '  No 
matter  how  things  seem,  I'm  sure  this  is 
the  right  course,  and  I'll  hold  to  it  whether 
I  feel  like  it  or  not,'  then  we  are  safe  ; 
and  gradually  right  habits  are  established 
and  it  becomes  easy  to  do  what  once 
had  cost  a  struggle. 

It  is  my  hope  that  this  volume  may  fix 
in  the  minds  of  the  young  men  who  read 
it  convictions  as  to  the  right  course  of 
life  so  deep  and  immovable  that  they 
may  be  anchored  to  in  the  stress  of 
storm. 

Last  winter  I  gave  an  address  before 
19 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

one  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  As- 
sociations in  New  York  on  The  Times 
and  their  Appeal  to  Young  Men.  I 
received  many  invitations  to  repeat  it  be- 
fore other  associations,  and  so  numerous 
were  the  requests  for  printed  copies  of 
the  address  that  it  was  decided  to  expand 
and  publish  it.  The  following  pages  are 
the  result. 

I  make  no  apology  for  using  here  some 
material  which  has  already  appeared  in 
other  connection  in  my  earlier  books.  It 
was  impossible  to  present  what  I  believe 
to  be  the  true  philosophy  of  life,  both  so- 
cial and  individual,  without  repeating 
ideas  which  it  has  been  the  object  of  my 
life  for  the  past  eighteen  years  to  pro- 
mulgate. This  presentation  of  those 
ideas  I  believe  to  be  better  adapted  to 
young  men  and  more  likely  to  command 

their  attention.     It  should  be  added  that 
20 


A   WORD   WITH   THE    READER 

much  of  the  present  volume  has  never 
appeared  in  any  of  its  predecessors. 

If  writer  and  reader  now  understand 
each  other,  we  are  better  prepared  to 
come  to  an  understanding  of  the  times  in 
which  we  live. 

21 


II 

"A   TIDE    IN    THE   AFFAIRS    OF    MEN*' 

ARCTIC  travelers  tell  us  that  in  those 
far  waters  icebergs  are  sometimes  seen 
plowing  steadily  on  against  wind  and 
tide,  as  if  they  had  the  power  of  self- 
direction.  The  explanation  is  found  in 
the  fact  that  their  huge  bulk  reaches  down 
to  the  deep  undercurrent  of  the  sea, 
which  bears  them  on  resistlessly. 

In  these  times  there  are  many  ebbing 
and  flowing  tides  of  tendency  which 
cause  conflicting  surface  currents  and 
many  veering  winds  of  opinion  which 

blow  from  all  points  of  the  doctrinal  com- 
22 


TIDE   IN   THE   AFFAIRS   OF   MEN 

pass.     The  result  is  much  doubt  and  con- 
fusion. 

Men  who  are  too  old  to  learn  are  too 
old  to  be  troubled  by  doubts.  They  do 
not  have  to  consider  the  new,  for  only 
the  old  is  true  and  good.  When  men 
grow  conservative  with  years,  their  ideas, 
their  habits,  their  character  have  become 
so  fixed  that  they  are  not  much  affected  by 
changes  in  the  great  world  around  them. 
They  may  be  troubled  for  others,  but  not 
for  themselves.  Not  so  with  young  men. 
Habit  has  gained  less  momentum  ;  opin- 
ion has  not  yet  hardened  into  conviction  ; 
character  has  all  the  sensitiveness  and 
flexibility  of  young  growth.  Young  men, 
therefore,  are  easily  affected  by  their 
environment,  are  often  unsettled  by  the 
conflict  of  opinions,  and  confused  by  the 
babel  of  voices.  It  is  not  strange,  then, 
that  they  are  perplexed  by  widely  differ- 

23 


THE   TIMES   AND  YOUNG    MEN 

ent  conceptions  of  life  and  of  duty  in  this 
period  of  transition  in  which  we  are  now 
living. 

When  a  young  man  is  in  doubt  as  to 
what  life  really  means,  he  does  not  know 
what  to  do  with  his  life ;  and  when  he 
does  not  know  what  to  do  with  his  life, 
it  is  pretty  certain  he  will  not  make  the 
best  use  of  it. 

Many  fail  because  they  do  not  discern 
the  signs  of  the  times.  Many  succeed 
because,  intelligently  or  otherwise,  they 
push  out  into  that 

"...  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men 
Which,  taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune." 

Carlyle  thought  that"  co-operation  with 
the  real  tendency  of  the  world  "  indicated 
the  "  insight  of  genius  ";  and  this  may 
well  be  true,  for  the  real  tendency  of  the 
world  is  given  to  it  by  the  hand  of  its 

Governor.     If,  then,  we  can  get  hold  of 
24 


TIDE   IN   THE   AFFAIRS   OF   MEN 

truth  deep  enough  to  reach  down  to  the 
undercurrent  of  civilization,  it  will  reveal 
to  us  the  direction  of  true  progress,  which, 
we  must  believe,  obeys  the  divine  pur- 
pose. And  if  we  genuinely  and  intel- 
ligently yield  ourselves  to  that  purpose, 
we  shall  be  little  troubled  by  conflicting 
surface  currents  and  by  shifting  winds  of 
doctrine. 

Change  was  more  characteristic  of  the 
nineteenth  century  than  anything  else. 
There  were  profound  changes  in  the 
world  of  ideas,  and  changes  hardly  less 
profound  in  the  physical  world, — changes 
in  the  standards  of  living,  in  the  meth- 
ods of  manufacture,  of  agriculture,  of 
business,  of  commerce,  and  of  travel. 
An  illustration  in  one  of  these  spheres 
will  suffice  for  all.  A  lady  of  my  ac- 
quaintance in  New  York  has  a  journal, 
written  by  her  aunt  a  hundred  years  ago. 
25 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

It  records  a  voyage  from  New  York  to 
Albany  and  return.  The  journey  up  the 
river  consumed  nine  days,  while  the  re- 
turn trip  was  accomplished  in  seven. 
Now,  sixteen  days  would  suffice  for  the 
passage  of  the  Atlantic  plus  a  journey 
across  Europe  to  Constantinople. 

These  changes,  which  had  they  been 
foretold  a  hundred  years  ago  would  have 
been  incredible,  have  come  chiefly  from 
two  simple  but  far-reaching  causes, — one 
in  the  physical  world  and  one  in  the  world 
of  ideas. 

Mechanical  power,  substituted  for  mus- 
cular, revolutionized  material  civilization  t 
and  has  profoundly  influenced  the  world 
of  thought.  The  scientific  method  has 
revolutionized  our  thought,  and  is  pro- 
foundly affecting  the  physical  world. 

We  will  consider  each  in  the  chapters 

immediately  succeeding. 
26 


Ill 


THE     GREAT     CHANGE     IN     THE     PHYSICAL 
WORLD 

TELL  me  one  thing  about  a  people,  viz., 
how  they  get  their  living,  and  I  will  tell 
you  a  hundred  things  about  them. 

A  tribe  that  lives  by  the  chase  is 
savage.  If  a  people  gain  their  livelihood 
directly  from  domestic  animals,  they  must 
wander  to  new  regions  as  their  flocks 
and  herds  require  new  pastures.  That 
is,  they  are  nomadic,  and  their  food,  their 
dress,  their  shelter,  their  government, 
their  customs,  and  their  laws  are  such  as 
always  belong  to  a  nomadic  civilization. 
27 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

If  a  people  get  their  living  by  cultivating 
the  ground,  the  tent  of  the  nomad  gives 
place  to  a  permanent  dwelling,  and  the 
food,  dress,  form  of  government,  laws, 
and  customs  of  an  agricultural  civilization 
differ  as  widely  from  those  of  a  nomadic 
civilization  as  a  house  differs  from  a  tent. 
If  a  people  are  commercial,  all  their  habits 
and  mode  of  life  are  more  or  less  affected 
by  contact  with  the  strange  peoples  with 
whom  they  trade.  Stimulated  by  the 
new  ideas  brought  home  by  their  mer- 
chants and  sailors,  they  are  progressive, 
and  develop  habits  of  mind,  manners,  arts, 
literatures,  virtues,  and  vices  as  unlike 
those  of  the  plowman  and  shepherd  as 
are  their  occupations. 

Among  the  many  influences  which 
mold  civilization  none  is  so  potent  among 
all  peoples  and  in  all  ages  as  the  form  of 

industry.     It    is   not   strange,  therefore, 
28 


THE  GREAT  PHYSICAL  CHANGE 

that  the  industrial  revolution  of  the  past 
century  should  have  produced  a  new 
civilization. 

This  industrial  revolution  was  caused 
by  the  substitution  of  mechanical l  power 
for  muscular.  The  earth  has  always  been 
a  vast  reservoir,  capable  of  supplying  man 
with  exhaustless  power  in  the  form  of 
steam,  electricity,  water,  wind,  air,  gas,  and 
the  like.  But  for  thousands  of  years  this 
reservoir  remained  untapped.  Agricul- 
ture, all  the  mechanical  arts,  navigation, 
travel,  and  transportation  depended  on 
vital  force — power  derived  from  the 
muscles  of  man  or  beast. 

Let  us  glance  rapidly  at  some  of  the 
far-reaching  results  which  followed  the 
substitution  of  mechanical  power  for 
muscular — a  change  which  has  taken 

xluse  the  word  "mechanical"  in  abroad  sense  to  in- 
clude all  forms  of  power  except  vital  energy. 
29 


THE    TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

place  mostly  within  the  memory  of  living 
men.1 

This  change  gave  to  the  world 


A   NEW   AND    GLORIOUS    POSSIBILITY 

Up  to  this  time  nature  had  yielded  her 
bounty  to  man  only  in  exchange  for  vital 
energy — so  much  bread,  so  much  sweat. 
In  order  to  double  the  producing  power 
of  the  world,  the  number  of  muscles  must 
be  doubled,  and  that  meant  doubling  the 
number  of  mouths.  Thus  as  supply  in- 
creased, the  demand  upon  it  increased  in 
like  measure  ;  and  as  one  set  of  muscles 
could  do  little  more  than  provide  for  the 
wants  of  their  owner  and  of  those  de- 
pendent on  him,  it  was  impossible  for  the 
world  ever  to  be  rich. 

1  For  a  farther  discussion  of  this  subject  see  the  author's 
44  Expansion  "  and  "  The  Twentieth-Century  City." 

30 


THE  GREAT  PHYSICAL  CHANGE 

There  was  wealth,  but  it  was  usually 
held  by  hands  that  did  not  create  it.  As 
late  as  1820  the  entire  property  of  the 
American  people  amounted  to  only  about 
$200  to  each  person.  Evidently,  under 
such  conditions,  wealth  here  implied 
poverty  there  ;  the  luxury  of  a  few  meant 
the  penury  of  the  many. 

But  mechanical  power  may  be  indef- 
initely increased  without  increasing  the 
number  of  mouths  by  one.  We  could 
double  our  productive  power  in  a  few 
months,  if  need  were.  More  food  and 
clothing  can  now  be  produced  than  all 
the  world  can  consume  ;  and  this  is  true 
of  all  the  great  staples.  Men  go  hungry 
and  ragged,  to  be  sure,  but  because  they 
have  nothing  with  which  to  buy. 

Tapping  the  earth's  great  reservoir  oi 
power  solved  the  problem  of  production 
and  made  possible  universal  abundance 
3' 


THE   TIMES  AND   YOUNG   MEN 

The  great  problem  remaining  is  that  of 
distribution. 

The  substitution  of  mechanical  for 
muscular  power  not  only  enabled  pro- 
duction to  outrun  consumption,  and 
so  insured  the  creation  of  great  wealth, 
it  also  resulted  in 


THE    ORGANIZATION    OF    INDUSTRY 

When  power  was  muscular  it  was  nec- 
essarily distributed.  Every  man  had  his 
own  and  could,  therefore,  do  his  work 
by  himself.  It  was  the  age  of  home- 
spun. The  husband  and  wife  could 
together  provide  about  all  of  the  nec- 
essaries of  life.  The  good  housewife 
could  take  the  wool  as  it  came  from  the 
back  of  the  sheep  and  dye  it,  card  it,  spin 
it,  weave  it,  and  make  it  into  a  suit  of 
clothes  ;  while  her  husband  could  not  only 
32 


THE   GREAT    PHYSICAL   CHANGE 

till  the  soil  but  build  the  house  and  make 
the  furniture.  The  man  and  woman  who 
can  do  all  that  to-day  are  very  old  peo- 
ple, who  belong  to  a  past  generation  and 
a  past  civilization. 

With  the  advent  of  the  steam-engine 
power  became  centralized.  Manufacture 
forsook  the  home  for  the  factory.  The 
machine  took  the  place  of  the  hand.  In- 
dustry became  organized,  which  resulted 
in  the  division  of  labor.  Whereas  one 
man  used  to  make  fifty  things,  it  now 
takes  fifty  men  to  make  one  thing  ;  and 
each  of  the  fifty  is  dependent  on  the  other 
forty-nine  for  the  finished  product.  And 
not  only  are  the  men  in  the  same  factory 
dependent  on  each  other,  but  all  the  great 
industries  have  become  interdependent, 
so  that  to  stop  one  cripples  all.  Thus  the 
industrial  revolution  has  produced 
33 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

A   SOCIAL    REVOLUTION 

The  organization  of  industry  has  re- 
sulted in  a  much  closer  and  more  ex- 
tended organization  of  society. 

When  the  family  was  industrially  suf- 
ficient unto  itself,  the  community  was  little 
more  than  a  collection  of  so  many  families. 
But  when  the  industry  of  the  community 
became  organized  and  families  became 
dependent  on  each  other,  there  was  de- 
veloped a  community  life  of  which  each 
individual  was  a  part. 

As  the  organization  of  industry  ex- 
tended, communities  became  dependent 
on  each  other,  then  different  sections  of 
the  country  became  interdependent,  until 
at  length  the  whole  nation  lived  one  in- 
dustrial and  one  social  life,  as  its  political 
life  was  one.  And  now  nations  are  be- 
coming dependent  on  each  other,  and 
34 


THE   GREAT   PHYSICAL  CHANGE 

there  is  being  developed  a  world  life, 
which  will  grow  with  the  organization  of 
a  world  industry. 

Thus  it  has  come  about  that  while  your  ) 
grandfather  and  grandmother  were  well-  7 
nigh  independent  of  all  the  world,  you  )  A 
are  well-nigh  dependent  on  all  the  world.  *" 
Take  a  single  item  in  your  daily  life — for 
instance,  the  morning  newspaper.  Did 
you  ever  ask  yourself  on  how  many  per- 
sons you  are  dependent  for  it?  How 
many  reporters  gathered  the  news  all  over 
the  civilized  world  ;  how  many  telegraph 
operators  transmitted  it  ;  how  many 
editors  sifted  and  commented  on  it ;  how 
many  compositors  set  the  type ;  how 
many  men  did  it  take  to  transform  the 
wood,  growing  perhaps  a  thousand  miles 
away,  into  pulp  and  paper ;  how  many 
men  were  required  to  transport  it  by 
steamboat  or  railway  to  the  newspaper 
35 


THE   TIMES  AND   YOUNG   MEN 

office ;  how  many  workmen  tended  the 
press  ;  how  many  handled  the  paper  from 
the  press  to  you  ? 

But  these  thousands  could  not  have 
produced  the  morning  paper  without  the 
co-operation  of  a  great  multitude  back  of 
them.  Telegraph  lines  had  to  be  built, 
and  ocean  cables  had  to  be  laid,  and  the 
wires  had  to  be  drawn,  and  the  press  and 
the  types  had  to  be  cast,  and  the  metal  had 
to  pass  through  the  foundry,  the  rolling- 
mill,  and  the  furnace ;  and  the  ores  had  to 
come  from  the  mine  ;  and  the  ships  and 
the  railways  and  the  cars  and  the  en- 
gines had  to  be  built.  Furthermore,  this 
great  multitude  had  to  be  fed  and  clothed 
while  they  toiled,  so  that  back  of  them 
was  another  great  army  of  workers  on 
whom  they  were  dependent.  So  that 
many  thousands  worked  for  you  directly, 
and  many,  many  millions  indirectly,  that 
36 


THE   GREAT   PHYSICAL   CHANGE 

you  might  read  the  morning  paper.  And 
this  is  only  one  item  out  of  hundreds  in 
your  daily  life. 

A  century  ago  the  farmer's  table,  the 
year  round,  represented  in  area  little 
more  than  a  few  acres,  and  in  numbers 
few  more  than  the  family  group.  Now 
your  table  in  the  course  of  a  year  repre- 
sents millions  of  square  miles  and  many 
millions  of  workers. 

In  the  agricultural  civilization  which 
prevailed  in  the  age  of  homespun  men's 
relations,  and  therefore  their  obligations, 
were  few  and  simple.  But  in  the  new  in- 
dustrial civilization  relations  have  become 
many  and  complex,  and  obligations  have 
been  correspondingly  multiplied. 

A   man    can    no  longer   do   what  he 

pleases  with  his  own  life.     What  he  does 

or  does  not  do  affects  thousands  of  other 

lives.     The    individual   is   beginning  to 

37 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

discover  that  his  life  is  not  complete  in 
itself,  but  is  part  of  a  greater  life — that 
of  society,  from  which  he  receives  and 
to  which  he  gives. 

Thus  the  fundamental  movement  of  the 
times  is  from  an  individualistic  to  a  social 
or  collective  type  of  civilization. 
38 


IV 


THE  two  hands  of  the  organist  play 
different  parts  on  different  banks  of  keys, 
but  each  part  adds  beauty  to  the  other, 
and  together  they  make  one  glorious 
harmony.  The  universe  is  God's  organ, 
and  he  has,  so  to  speak,  two  hands.  The 
great  movements  in  the  physical  world 
and  in  the  world  of  ideas  are  in  tune  with 
each  other  and  so  perfectly  timed  that 
together  they  make  a  harmony  all  divine. 

By  what  Southey  called  "  the  timing  of 
Providence,"  the  wonderful  development 
39 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

in  the  material  world  during  the  past  cen- 
tury has  been  accompanied  by  a  progress 
no  less  wonderful  in  the  world  of  ideas. 
This  has  been  due  chiefly  to 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    METHOD 

Formerly  philosophers  wove  their 
theories  out  of  their  own  brains,  very 
much  as  spiders  weave  their  webs  out  of 
their  own  bodies.  If  facts  did  not  agree 
with  the  theory,  so  much  the  worse  for 
the  facts.  Now  the  scientist  gathers  his 
facts  with  great  patience  and  care,  rigidly 
verifies  them,  and  from  them  deduces  his 
theory.  If  new  facts  appear  which  are 
inconsistent  with  the  theory,  so  much  the 
worse  for  the  theory. 

As  a  new  method  in  the  physical  world 
has  opened  to  us  exhaustless  mines  of 

material   wealth,    so   the    new   scientific 
40 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

method  has  proved  to  be  the  "Open 
Sesame  "  to  the  treasure-house  of  truth. 
If  riches  had  enormously  increased  with- 
out a  corresponding  increase  of  knowl- 
edge, the  balance  between  realities  which 
are  seen  and  those  which  are  not  seen 
might  have  been  hopelessly  lost,  and  our 
civilization  might  have  become  grossly 
materialistic  beyond  all  redemption. 

But  if  we  may  say  that  there  was  a 
greater  accumulation  of  riches  during  the 
nineteenth  century  than  during  all  preced- 
ing ages,  we  may  also  say  that  there  was 
a  greater  acquisition  of  knowledge  during 
the  past  one  hundred  years  than  during 
all  preceding  time. 

We  have  not  only  learned  much,  we 
have  had  much  to  unlearn.  The  new 
scientific  method  has  compelled  the  re- 
writing of  all  history  and  the  re-reason- 
ing of  all  science.  This  new  method,  like 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

an  iconoclast  with  hammer  in  hand,  has 
been  going  through  the  temple  of  our 
knowledge,  breaking  many  images  which 
we  had  devoutly  worshiped. 

It  has  not  spared  our  religious  beliefs ; 
and  as  the  result  of  its  application 
theology  has  been  badly  broken  up. 
Many  good  people  feel  as  if  the  founda- 
tions were  being  shaken,  and  say  :  "  If 
the  foundations  be  removed,  what  shall 
the  righteous  do  ? "  But  He  who 
created  the  universe  has  not  lost  control 
of  it,  and  never  will ;  and  He  who  loved 
mankind  enough  to  give  his  Son  for  our 
redemption  has  not  ceased  to  love  us,  and 
never  can.  We  may  rest  assured  that 
these  multiplied  changes  in  the  material 
world  and  in  the  world  of  ideas  are  not 
beyond  God's  knowledge  or  the  scope  of 
his  plan  or  the  wide  reach  of  his  power. 

There   have  been   turnings   and   over- 
42 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

turnings  in  other  ages  which  disturbed 
good  men  of  other  generations,  and  yet 
we  are  now  enabled  to  see  that  those 
changes  were  but  the  revolutions  of  God's 
great  chariot-wheels,  bearing  the  world 
onward  toward  the  goal  of  his  beneficent 
purposes. 

DIFFERENCE      BETWEEN     THEOLOGY     AND 
RELIGION 

Many  are  disturbed  at  the  changes 
which  are  taking  place  in  the  creeds 
because  they  fail  to  distinguish  between 
theology  and  religion.  The  Christian 
religion  is  based  on  facts  which  cannot 
change  ;  theology  is  the  interpretation 
of  the  facts,  which  interpretation  must 
change  with  increasing  knowledge. 

Linnaeus  did  a  great  work  for  botany 
in  his  day.  He  aroused  a  wonderful  en- 
thusiasm for  the  study  of  vegetable  life, 
43 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

and  revolutionized  the  science  of  botany. 
But  scientists  tell  us  now  that  the  Linnaean 
method  was  artificial,  and  it  has  been 
supplanted  by  what  is  known  as  the  nat- 
ural method.  That  is,  there  has  taken 
place  another  revolution  in  the  science  of 
botany  ;  but  hepaticas  and  daisies  and 
buttercups  remain  the  same  that  they 
were  in  the  days  of  Linnaeus.  The  facts 
on  which  the  science  is  based  are  un- 
changed, but  men  have  reached  a  new 
interpretation  of  the  facts. 

Now  there  is  the  same  difference  be- 
tween theology  and  religion  that  there  is 
between  botany  and  flowers.  The  most 
fundamental  facts  of  Christianity  are,  first, 
the  fact  of  human  sin  and  need  ;  second, 
the  fact  of  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus 
Christ ;  and,  third,  the  fact  that  those  who 
really  accept  him  as  Lord  and  Savior  do 
somehow  find  peace,  do  find  the  deepest 
44 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

needs  of  their  nature  met,  do  somehow 
gain  strength  to  win  the  great  battle  of 
life.  These  facts  have  never  changed 
and  never  can  ;  and  they  are  as  well 
established  as  are  any  facts  of  history  or 
science — the  life  and  death  of  Julius 
Caesar  or  the  fact  of  gravitation. 

But  Christian  theology  is  something 
quite  different,  viz.,  the  interpretation  of 
these  and  of  the  less  fundamental  facts 
of  the  Christian  religion.  There  may 
be  different  interpretations  of  the  same 
facts,  hence  different  theologies,  all 
claiming  to  be  Christian ;  and  there 
may  be  new  light  thrown  on  the  facts, 
which  compels  a  new  interpretation  of 
them. 

Indeed,   this   is    precisely    what    has 

taken  place.     During  the  past  fifty  years 

there  has  been  a  vast  amount  of  study 

expended  on  the  life,  the  character,  and 

45 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

the  teachings  of  Jesus,  the  language  he 
spoke,  the  people  he  taught,  the  times 
and  the  land  in  which  he  lived.  I  heard 
Principal  Fairbairn  of  Oxford  say  : 
"  This  generation  knows  Jesus  Christ 
better  than  any  generation  since  his 
own  "  ;  and  that  is  true.  Much  of  the 
best  thinking  in  the  world,  during  the 
past  half-century,  has  been  concentrated 
on  Christ,  with  the  result  that  we  know 
a  good  deal  more  about  him  and  his 
teachings  than  the  fathers  did  who  wrote 
the  creeds  some  hundreds  of  years  ago. 
We  know  better  than  they  the  language 
in  which  the  Gospels  were  written.  We 
know  better  than  they  what  was  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  whom  Christ  taught, 
how  they  understood  him,  and  how  he 
intended  to  be  understood.  We  know 
better  than  they  the  laws  of  the  human 

mind,   of  which   there   was    very    little 
46 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

scientific   knowledge    when   the   creeds 
were  written. 

Now  all  this  increase  of  knowledge  has 
rendered  the  old  interpretation  of  the 
facts  inadequate.  Many,  failing  to  make 
the  distinction  pointed  out  above,  have 
thought  that  to  surrender  the  old  state- 
ment of  doctrine  was  to  surrender  the 
Christian  religion.  As  well  might  we 
refuse  to  part  with  Linnaeus  for  fear  of 
losing  the  flowers. 

The  period  of  readjustment  in  which 
we  now  are  is  of  course  one  of  conflict- 
ing opinions,  of  more  or  less  doubt  and 
confusion,  and  of  not  a  little  distress.  The 
scientific  method  has  thrown  a  flood  of 
new  light  on  man,  on  nature,  and  on  the 
Holy  Scriptures.  It  has  given  to  the 
world  a  new  conception  of  God's  method 
in  creation  and  in  revelation.  From  the 
new  facts  which  science  has  revealed, 
47 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

wrong  inferences  as  well  as  right  have 
been  drawn,  and  men  are  not  all  agreed 
as  yet  what  theory  or  doctrine  best 
harmonizes  and  interprets  all  the  facts. 
There  has  been  during  recent  years  some 
real  progress  in  the  science  of  theology 
as  in  other  sciences,  but  it  does  not  come 
within  the  scope  of  this  discussion  to 
attempt  even  an  outline  of  the  recon- 
struction which  is  in  progress.  If,  how- 
ever, we  can  find  in  the  world  of  ideas,  as 
we  have  already  found  in  the  changes  of 
the  physical  world,  a  deep  and  resistless 
undercurrent ;  and  if,  moreover,  we  find 
these  two  great  currents  moving  in 
precisely  the  same  direction,  we  may 
safely  conclude  that  their  movement  is 
that  of  true  progress,  because  their  direc- 
tion is  given  to  them  by  the  will  of  Him 
who  governs  the  universe  ;  and,  neglect- 
ing the  conflicting  tides  and  eddies  of 
48 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

surface  opinions,  we  may  safely  commit 
ourselves  to  the  mighty  current  that  fol- 
lows the  hand  of  God. 

THE     UNDERCURRENT     IN    THE    WORLD    OF 
IDEAS 

Who  has  not  noticed  in  the  world  of 
ideas  the  growing  force  of  public  opin- 
ion ?  If  men  did  not  think  at  all,  or  if 
they  all  disagreed,  there  could  be  no 
public  opinion.  The  fact  that  public 
opinion  is  rapidly  formed  and  becomes 
pronounced  shows  that  men  are  learning 
to  think  together,  that  in  large  numbers 
they  move  in  the  same  direction  and 
arrive  at  the  same  conclusion.  And  not 
only  is  this  true  in  free  countries  like 
America  and  England,  but  it  is  becoming 
true  in  Europe.  Even  in  Russia  public 
opinion  is  formed  and  finds  expression 
under  the  iron  scepter  of  the  Czar. 
49 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

We  hear  also  of  the  "  social  con- 
science," which  in  the  sphere  of  morals 
corresponds  to  public  opinion  in  the 
sphere  of  thought.  It  means  that  large 
numbers  arrive  at  the  same  convictions 
of  right.  There  are  beginning  to  appear 
a  world  opinion,  a  world  conscience,  and 
a  world  life.1 

It  is  significant  that  the  prefix  pan 
(all)  is  coming  into  such  common  use — 
Pan- American,  Pan- Slavic,  Pan-Ger- 
manic, Pan-Anglican,  Pan-Presbyterian, 
Pan-Methodist,  and  the  like.  It  indicates 
in  each  instance  a  tendency  for  all  of  a 
certain  kind  or  class  or  race  to  come 
together,  or  at  least  a  movement  of 
thought  in  that  direction  ;  and  it  is  the 
world  of  thought  of  which  I  am  speaking. 
It  is  the  recognition  of  common  blood, 

1  For   a   discussion  of   these   topics,    see   the   author's 
"Expansion,"  pp.  214-246,  264-275. 

50 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

or  common  beliefs,  or  common  interests 
which  inspires  all  these  movements  ;  and 
this  recognition  is  taking  place  in  the  in- 
dustrial world  as  well  as  in  the  political 
and  religious. 

Men  are  seeing  more  and  more  clearly 
that  their  interests  are  not  individual  and 
isolated,  but  common.  First,  men  who 
were  engaged  in  the  same  industry  dis- 
cover that  their  interests  are  really  one, 
and  they  organize  their  unions ;  then 
men  in  different  but  interrelated  in- 
dustries see  that  they  have  much  in 
common,  and  different  unions  combine  ; 
then  men  see  the  common  interests  of  all 
labor,  and  there  is  a  movement  toward 
national  federation  ;  then  they  discover 
the  necessity  of  international  organiza- 
tion and  action. 

Capital  has  been  moving  in  the  same 
direction.  First,  there  was  the  partner- 
Si 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

ship,  then  the  corporation,  then  the  com- 
bination of  corporations  in  increasing 
numbers  and  magnitude,  until  there  is 
developed  at  last  a  trust  as  broad  as  a 
continent. 

Capital  and  labor  have  not  yet  dis- 
covered that  their  interests  are  really  one, 
that  they  must  co-operate  like  the  two 
wings  of  a  bird  ;  but  that  discovery  will 
come  in  time,  and  then  they  will  combine. 

Thus  we  find  an  unmistakable  current 
in  the  world  of  thought  toward  what 
might  be  called  the  consciousness  of 
solidarity — something  so  new  in  kind 
or  degree  that  it  has  compelled  the  use 
of  a  new  word  to  express  it,  and  we  hear 
of  the  "  solidarity  of  labor,"  the  "  soli- 
darity of  society,"  the  "  solidarity  of  the 

i, 
race. 

It  appears  that  the  great  movements 
in  the  physical  world  and  the  world  of 
52 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

action — in  industry,  in  invention,  in  com- 
merce, in  politics,  in  philanthropy,  and 
equally  in  the  world  of  thought — in 
education,  in  science,  in  religion,  and  in 
philosophy,  are  all  in  the  same  general 
direction.  The  tendency  is  to  perceive 
the  wider  relations  of  life,  to  recognize 
common  interests,  to  subordinate  differ- 
ences and  to  emphasize  resemblances,  to 
sink  the  small  in  the  great,  to  merge  the 
many  in  the  one,  to  bring  a  multitude  of 
different  facts  or  phenomena  under  one 
great  law. 

Thus  the  great  change  in  the  world 
of  ideas,  like  the  great  change  in  the 
physical  world,  may  be  summed  up  as 
a  movement  from  an  individualistic  to  a 
collective  type  of  civilization.  The  two 
great  undercurrents  are  really  one  and 
the  same. 

S3 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

A    NEW    CONCEPTION    OF    CHRISTIANITY 

It  is  not  at  all  strange  that  in  such 
times  an  individualistic  conception  of 
salvation  should  cease  to  appeal  strongly 
to  men ;  not  strange  that  an  individ- 
ualistic type  of  religion  should  lose  its 
power. 

Thinking  minds  want  a  religious  con- 
ception large  enough  to  make  room 
for  the  enlarged  ideas,  comprehensive 
enough  to  embrace  every  new  fact  of 
universal  knowledge,  secure  enough  to 
welcome  every  new  ray  of  light  from 
whatever  source — a  religion  adapted  not 
only  to  the  individual,  but  also  to  the  vast 
life  of  society  ;  not  a  religion  of  rules,  but 
one  of  principles,  applicable  to  all  the 
possible  complexities  of  human  relation- 
ships and  capable  of  solving  social  as 
well  as  personal  problems. 
54 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

There  is  another  illustration  of  the 
"  timing  of  Providence  "  furnished  by  the 
fact  that  the  change  in  the  character  and 
hence  in  the  needs  of  civilization  has 
been  accompanied  by  a  corresponding 
change  in  the  conception  of  Christianity. 
This  change  is  coming  as  the  result  of 
the  movement  back  to  Christ,  which  has 
given  to  us  his  point  of  view,  which  is 
of  course  the  true  point  of  view.  Cer- 
tainly no  one  will  question  that  Christ's 
conception  of  his  own  religion  was  the 
correct  one.  Let  us  see  how  strongly 
his  conception  contrasts  with  that  which 
has  been  practically  the  universal,  and 
is  still  the  general,  conception  of  the 
churches. 

The  point  of  view  of  the  Protestant 

churches  has  been  that  of  the  individual. 

Indeed,  the  great  issue  of  Protestantism 

with  the  Church  of  Rome  has  been  the 

55 


THE   TIMES  AND  YOUNG   MEN 

right  of  private  judgment.  It  has  been 
the  common  conception  that  true  religion 
consists  in  right  personal  relations  of  the 
individual  soul  with  God.  The  Standard 
Dictionary  defines  religion  as  "  a  belief 
binding  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  to  a 
supernatural  being  on  whom  he  is  con- 
scious that  he  is  dependent."  Salvation 
has  meant  simply  the  salvation  of  the  in- 
dividual ;  and  it  has  been  believed  that 
the  work  of  the  churches  consisted  in 
saving  as  many  individual  souls  as  pos- 
sible. That  is,  the  individual  has  been 
the  great  aim  of  the  churches. 

Moreover,  attention  has  been  fixed  on 
the  soul,  not  on  the  man  as  a  whole,  but 
on  a  fraction  of  him — that  part  of  him 
which  could  be  gotten  safely  to  heaven. 
The  body  has  been  neglected,  and  in 
many  ages  of  the  Christian  era  much  de- 
spised and  abused  as  the  natural  enemy  of 
56 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

the  soul.  Thus  religion  has  been  narrowed 
down  to  a  small  fraction  of  human  life. 
Surely  it  is  no  wonder  that  our  social  sys- 
tem is  unchristian — no  wonder  that  it  has 
so  little  to  do  with  a  religion  that  has  so 
little  to  do  with  it.  Their  mutual  indif- 
ference would  seem  to  be  mutually  satis- 
factory. 

Christ,  on  the  other  hand,  had  his  eye 
fixed  on  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  made 
it  the  great  subject  of  his  teachings.  His 
very  first  word  was,  "  Repent,  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  In  the 
very  first  sentence  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  which  is  called  his  great  inaugural, 
he  refers  to  the  kingdom.  When  he 
sent  out  his  disciples  he  said  that  it  was 
"  to  preach  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom," 
and  that  he  himself  was  sent  for  the 
same  purpose.  In  the  prayer  which  he 
taught  us,  after  the  words,  "  Hallowed  be 
57 


THE  TIMES   AND  YOUNG   MEN 

thy  name,"  the  first  petition  was,  "  Thy 
kingdom  come."  He  enjoins  it  upon  his 
disciples  to  make  the  kingdom  the  su- 
preme object  of  endeavor  :  "  Seek  ye  first 
the  kingdom  of  God."  In  a  single  chap- 
ter (Matt,  xiii.)  he  gives  us  a  half- 
dozen  parables,  the  object  of  each  of  which 
is  to  explain  the  nature  of  the  kingdom 
or  the  laws  of  its  growth.  Forty-five 
times  does  he  refer  to  the  kingdom  in 
this  one  gospel — more  than  one  hundred 
times  in  the  first  three  gospels.  And 
we  are  told  in  the  first  chapter  of  the 
Acts  that  during  the  interval  between 
his  resurrection  and  ascension  he  dis- 
coursed with  his  disciples  "  concerning 
the  things  of  the  kingdom."  Thus  the 
beginning  and  end  of  his  preaching,  and 
the  great  subject  to  which  he  constantly 
recurs,  is  the  kingdom  of  God. 

A  study  of  the  connection  in  which 
58 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

this  expression  occurs  shows  unmistak- 
ably that  Christ  did  not  mean  by  it  the 
home  of  the  blessed  dead,  but  the  king- 
dom of  God  here  in  the  earth.  Now  a 
kingdom  implies  an  organized  society, 
the  citizens  of  which  are  the  subjects  of 
the  king,  and  the  laws  of  which  are  his 
laws.  "  The  kingdom  of  God  "  there- 
fore was  Jesus'  social  ideal,  which  will 
be  fully  realized  in  the  world  when  God's 
will  is  "  done  in  earth  as  it  is  heaven  "; 
that  is,  when  all  the  king's  laws  are  per- 
fectly obeyed  among  men. 

The  kingdom  of  God  (or  the  king- 
dom of  heaven,  which  is  the  same  thing) 
means  much  more  to  us  than  it  could 
possibly  mean  to  the  early  disciples, 
because  science  has  revealed  to  us  a  great 
multitude  of  natural  laws  of  which  they 
knew  nothing ;  and  all  these  so-called 
laws  of  nature  are  as  truly  God's  laws  as 
59 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

are  the  Ten  Commandments.  The  laws 
of  the  body  and  of  the  mind  are  no  less 
God's  laws  than  are  those  of  the  spiritual 
nature  ;  and  all  alike  are  laws  of  the 
kingdom  ;  so  that  the  full  coming  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  the  earth  will 
mean  perfect  obedience  to  all  the  laws 
of  the  body  and  therefore  perfect  health, 
perfect  obedience  to  all  the  laws  of  the 
mind  and  therefore  freedom  from  all 
superstition  and  prejudice,  perfect  obe- 
dience to  all  the  laws  of  the  spirit  and 
therefore  perfect  righteousness  and  joy 
in  God.  It  will  mean  obedience  to  the 
laws  of  nature  and  therefore  the  con- 
quest of  nature  and  the  full  enjoyment 
of  her  bounty  ;  it  will  also  mean  obedi- 
ence to  the  laws  of  society  and  therefore 
peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  the  kingdom  of 

God  which  Jesus  came  to  establish  in 
60 


CHANGE  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  IDEAS 

the  earth  is  comprehensive  enough  to 
make  room  for  all  the  new  facts  which 
science  has  revealed  or  ever  can  reveal, 
and  broad  enough  to  include  and  utilize 
all  the  physical  resources  which  have 
been  or  ever  can  be  developed.  It  rec- 
ognizes the  individual — not  a  fraction 
of  him,  but  the  whole  man — both  in  his 
relations  to  God  and  to  his  fellow  men. 
It  recognizes  society,  and  it  will  be 
found  that  its  three  fundamental  laws, 
which  will  be  discussed  in  the  next 
chapters,  are  social  laws,  obedience  to 
which  will  bring  healing  to  all  our  social 
diseases. 

Thus  when  we  get  back  to  that 
"  simplicity  which  is  in  Christ,"  we  find 
a  Christianity  precisely  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  the  times.1 

1  For  a  fuller  discussion  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  see  the 
author's  ' '  The  Next  Great  Awakening. " 

61 


V 

THREE   GREAT    LAWS    WHICH    NEVER 
CHANGE 

I.     The  Law  of  Service 

THERE  are  certain  laws  which,  so  far 
as  we  can  see,  are  universal  in  their  scope 
and  eternal  in  their  application.  One 
of  these  is  THE  LAW  OF  SERVICE. 

In  all  the  world  we  find  nothing  which 
exists  wholly  unto  itself.  There  would 
seem  to  be  no  form  of  existence  so  low, 
no  atom  so  small,  that  it  has  not  its  ap- 
pointed task  in  the  economy  of  nature. 

Even  the  dust,  which  we  despise  and 
with  which  the  housekeeper  wages  a  life- 
long war,  has  within  a  few  years  been 
62 


THE    LAW   OF   SERVICE 

found  to  render  varied  and  wonderful 
service.  It  gives  to  us  the  blue  of  the 
sky  and  of  the  sea.  It  is  the  canvas  on 
which  the  sun  paints  the  gorgeous  col- 
ors of  the  morning  and  of  the  evening. 
Without  the  dust  there  would  be  no 
diffused  daylight ;  we  should  have  to 
choose  between  the  glare  of  the  sun's 
direct  rays  and  total  darkness.  Every 
cloud  that  hid  the  sun  would  bring  mid- 
night. Says  Mr.  Alfred  Russel  Wal- 
lace1 :  1<  It  has  been  recently  discovered 
that  dust  has  another  part  to  play  in 
nature ;  a  part  so  important  that  it  is 
doubtful  whether  we  could  even  live 
without  it.  To  the  presence  of  dust  in 
the  higher  atmosphere  we  owe  the  for- 
mation of  mists,  clouds,  and  gentle  bene- 
ficial rains,  instead  of  water-spouts  and 
destructive  torrents." 

1  "  The  Wonderful  Century,"  p.  77. 
63 


THE   TIMES    AND   YOUNG    MEN 

Substances  usually  render  not  one 
service  but  many.  Water,  for  instance, 
is  the  element  in  which  not  only  fishes 
but  a  thousand  other  forms  of  life  dis- 
port themselves;  it  floats  our  commerce; 
it  tosses  the  light  keels  of  pleasure;  it 
is  an  essential  constituent  in  all  animal 
and  vegetable  life ;  it  slakes  our  thirst ; 
it  makes  our  steam  and  drives  our  spin- 
dles and  draws  our  trains ;  it  furnishes 
our  ice ;  it  forms  the  dew ;  it  cleanses 
and  purifies;  it  refreshes  all  nature;  it 
makes  the  lake  the  eye  of  the  landscape ; 
it  gives  to  us  the  majesty  of  the  sea,  the 
beauty  and  power  of  the  cataract,  and 
the  glory  of  the  overarching  bow.  With- 
out its  service  the  earth  would  become 
one  vast  cemetery — a  lifeless  cinder  like 
the  moon. 

Nature  is  full  of  vast  circles  of  ser- 
vice The  clouds  carry  the  bounty  of  the 
64 


THE    LAW   OF   SERVICE 

sea  back  to  the  thirsty  land  ;  "  the  rain 
also  filleth  the  pools,"  and  replenishes 
the  hidden  springs  which  feed  the  rills 
and  brim  the  river-banks.  The  streams 
bear  back  to  the  ocean  what  it  had  given 
to  the  clouds  by  evaporation.  "  Unto  the 
place  from  whence  the  rivers  came, 
thither  they  return  again."  The  ocean 
serves  as  the  world's  great  filter  where 
the  rivers  deposit  their  impurities,  and 
the  waters  distilled  by  the  sun  start  again 
on  their  round  of  blessing  as  pure  as  the 
dew. 

Without  this  great  circle  of  service 
every  man  and  beast  and  bird,  every  leaf 
and  blade  of  grass  would  perish. 

"  The  wind  goeth  toward  the  south, 
and  turneth  about  unto  the  north  ;  it 
whirleth  about  continually,  and  returneth 
again  according  to  his  circuits."  In  its 
circle  of  service  the  wind  facilitates 
65 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

evaporation,  carries  the  rain-clouds  far 
inland,  aids  in  precipitating  vapor,  puri- 
fies the  air,  fills  the  sail,  turns  the  mill, 
scatters  seeds  and  bears  the  fertilizing 
pollen  from  flower  to  flower. 

Matter  makes  a  great  circuit  of  change 
that  it  may  render  more  service.  It 
passes  from  the  mineral  kingdom  up  to 
the  vegetable,  and  from  the  vegetable 
kingdom  on  to  the  animal ;  and  when  the 
animal  dies  nature  decomposes  it  into 
its  elements,  that  it  may  again  begin  the 
round  of  service  in  some  other  form.  At 
every  step  in  this  circuit  matter  affords 
numberless  new  utilities.  The  mineral 
kingdom  furnishes  countless  substances 
for  man's  service  ;  and  even  deserts  and 
barren  mountain  ranges  have  their  uses. 
A  multitude  of  new  values  appear  in  the 
vegetable  world.  Besides  sustaining 

animal    life   and    affording   a  thousand 
66 


THE   LAW   OF   SERVICE 

materials  for  a  multiplicity  of  uses, 
every  tree  and  plant  which  springs  from 
the  soil  serves  as  a  pump  to  lift  the 
water  from  the  ground  and  return  it 
to  the  sky,  thus  profoundly  influencing 
climate.  Again,  animal  life  renders  a 
thousand  obvious  services  quite  impos- 
sible to  the  vegetable  and  mineral 
kingdoms. 

Furthermore,  there  is  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  illustrations  of  this  law  quite 
apart  from  any  service  directly  rendered 
to  man.  In  every  organism  throughout 
the  animal  and  vegetable  worlds  the  law 
of  service  obtains.  Every  organism  has 
its  several  organs,  each  of  which  serves 
all,  while  all  serve  each.  Again,  two 
wholly  different  forms  of  life  often 
render  necessary  service  to  each  other. 
Thus  the  flower  feeds  the  bee  and 

butterfly,  while    they  aid   the  wind  in 
67 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

bearing  from  blossom  to  blossom  the 
fertilizing  pollen. 

These  three  kingdoms — the  mineral, 
vegetable,  and  animal — are  united  into 
a  whole  by  the  law  of  service,  without 
which  the  universe  could  hardly  be  a 
-uni-verse,  i.e.  turned  into  one. 

It  is  true  there  are  things  in  nature 
for  which  there  is  no  apparent  use.  It 
does  not  follow,  however,  that  no  use 
exists.  Science  is  constantly  discovering 
new  uses.  And  it  would  seem  more 
probable  that  these  apparently  useless 
things  have  uses  as  yet  undiscovered 
than  that  they  afford  exceptions  to  a 
law  which  appears  to  be  so  universal  in 
its  application. 

Moreover,  many  seeming  exceptions 
are  found  to  conform  to  the  law,  if  we 
include  educational  and  moral  uses. 

Thus  the  parasite  does  not  earn  its  own 
68 


THE    LAW   OF   SERVICE 

living ;  it  is  a  burden  on  some  other  life, 
and  would  appear  to  be  just  so  much 
worse  than  useless.  But  the  parasite  is 
a  teacher  ;  it  reveals  the  law  of  service 
by  manifesting  in  its  own  degeneracy 
nature's  penalty  for  violating  the  law. 

We  are  assured  that  this  law  reaches 
into  the  spiritual  world.  "  Are  they  not 
all  ministering  spirits,  sent  forth  to 
minister  for  them  who  shall  be  heirs  of 
salvation  ? "  He  in  whom  dwelt  the 
fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily  said  that 
he  came  "  not  to  be  ministered  unto 
but  to  minister."  God  is  the  greatest 
servant  in  the  universe,  for  he  ministers 
not  only  to  all  his  children,  but  to  beast 
and  bird  and  creeping  thing;  for  all  he 
provides  their  meat  in  due  season. 

Thus  the  great  law  of  service  spans 
the  universe  from  the  dust  up  to  God 

i  Heb.  i.  14. 
69 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

himself.  It  is  binding  alike  on  the  spir- 
itual and  the  physical.  Can  we  imagine 
that  man,  in  whom  the  spiritual  and 
physical  unite,  is  exempt  ?  Nay,  rather, 
in  him  the  law  finds  its  noblest  fulfill- 
ment. 

In  unconscious  nature,  service  is  of 
course  unconscious.  In  the  inorganic 
and  vegetable  worlds,  and  generally  in 
the  animal  world  below  man,  service  is 
without  choice  or  intelligence.  It  is  a 
part  of  the  harmony  of  the  universe,  it 
manifests  the  beauty  of  perfect  order 
like  the  movements  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  and  in  the  ongoing  of  nature  it 
contributes  to  the  final  consummation 
of  human  blessedness,  but  it  is  of  course 
devoid  of  all  moral  beauty.  Only  when 
we  rise  to  conscious  man  may  we  find 
conscious  service,  freely  chosen  and  in- 
telligently and  gladly  rendered.  In  such 
70 


THE    LAW   OF  SERVICE 

service  there  is  the  same    beauty  that 
glorifies  the  ministration  of  an  angel. 

And  Christianity  requires  of  us  such 
service,  because  it  always  holds  us  to  that 
which  is  best  and  noblest.  Christ  taught 
the  law  of  Christian  service  by  reiter- 
ated precept  and  by  life-long  example. 
Though  he  "  thought  it  not  robbery  to 
be  equal  with  God,"  he  "made  himself 
of  no  reputation,  and  took  upon  him  the 
form  of  a  servant."  He  said  to  his  dis- 
ciples, "  I  am  among  you  as  he  that 
serveth."  And  if  he  required  a  life  of 
service  of  himself,  he  could  require  no 
less  of  his  disciples,  for  "  the  disciple  is 
not  above  his  master,  nor  the  servant 
above  his  lord.  It  is  enough  for  the 
disciple  to  be  as  his  master,  and  the  ser- 
vant as  his  lord."  "As  the  Father  hath 
sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you."  He  came  to 
minister ;  he  therefore  sent  forth  his  dis- 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

ciples  to  minister.  Moreover,  he  taught 
that  the  final  principle  of  judgment  to 
be  applied  to  all  nations  was  that  of  min- 
istration. This  law  of  service,  then,  is 
fundamental  both  to  Christianity  and  to 
creation. 

72 


VI 

THREE    GREAT    LAWS    WHICH    NEVER 

CHANGE — (  Continued) 
II.    Self -giving  or  Sacrifice 

THERE  has  been  a  great  deal  of  sacri- 
fice in  the  world  which  was  not  giving 
but  taking — the  sacrifice  of  the  weak 
to  the  strong.  If  sacrifice  is  one  of  the 
stern  laws  of  nature,  science  reveals  that 
it  is  sternly  benevolent.  In  the  strug- 
gle for  life  the  unfit  are  sacrificed  to  the 
fit;  not  simply  the  many  to  the  few,  but 
also  to  the  future,  for  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  means  progress.  So  far  as  we 
can  see,  there  could  have  been  no  evo- 
lution without  sacrifice.  Nature  could 
73 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

improve  the  type  only  at    the  cost  of 
countless  individuals. 

"  So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life." 

Thus  the  law  of  sacrifice,  regnant 
throughout  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms,  may  be  traced  back  from 
man  to  the  far  distant  beginnings  of 
life  in  its  lowest  forms.  And  below  the 
organic,  we  find  the  atom  giving  itself 
to  the  molecule  and  the  molecule  giving 
itself  to  the  crystal. 

Again,  above  man  we  find  that  the 
law  of  sacrifice,  like  that  of  service,  in- 
cludes God  himself,  for  God  is  love,  and 
love  is  self-giving.  He  is  ever  giving 
himself  to  his  creatures  according  to 
their  capacity  to  receive  ;  his  gift  of  him- 
self in  Christ  being  the  supreme  sacri- 
fice, the  unspeakable  gift. 

Would  it  not  be  strange  and  unac- 
74 


SELF-GIVING   OR   SACRIFICE 

countable  if  this  law  of  sacrifice,  which 
includes  the  spiritual  above  man  and  the 
physical  below  him,  omitted  man  him- 
self, who  in  his  own  nature,  as  already 
said,  unites  both  the  spiritual  and  the 
physical  ? 

It  is  evident  in  the  plan  of  nature  that 
the  lower  was  intended  as  a  means  to 
the  higher  as  an  end.  The  mold  gives 
itself  to  the  grass,  the  grass  gives  itself 
to  the  herd,  the  herd  gives  itself  to  man  ; 
and  every  step  of  this  far  journey  from 
mold  to  man  is  indeed  a  giving  up — 
a  promotion — and  each  promotion  is 
through  sacrifice. 

Are  we  to  suppose  that  this  law  of 
sacrifice  and  of  promotion  by  sacrifice 
applies  to  all  the  lower  ranks  of  nature 
where  self-giving  is  blind  and  uncon- 
scious, or  sacrifice  is  unwilling,  and  fails 
at  man,  precisely  the  point  where  moral 
75 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

beauty  and  the  glory  of  heroism  become 
possible  ? 

Nay,  rather,  sacrifice  in  the  lower 
ranges  of  nature  is  only  a  prophecy  of 
something  infinitely  higher  when  a  free 
will  freely  offers  itself  for  another.  Next 
to  the  cross  of  Christ,  the  law  of  sacrifice 
finds  its  most  perfect  illustration  in  man's 
giving  himself  to  God  for  the  service  of 
humanity  ;  and  in  that  self-giving  there 
is  another  and  nobler  illustration  of 
promotion  by  sacrifice,  for  in  that  dying 
unto  self  man  lives  unto  God,  and  is 
born  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 

When  man  thus  gives  himself  to  God, 
it  completes  the  great  circle  of  sacrifice 
which,  like  that  of  service,  includes 
heaven  and  earth.  But  when  a  man  re- 
fuses to  yield  himself  to  this  law,  what 
then  ?  Lower  orders  of  existence  have 

given  themselves  to  him,  and  through 
76 


SELF-GIVING   OR  SACRIFICE 

him  should  have  contributed  according 
to  their  measure  to  the 

".  .   .  one  far-off  divine  event 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

A  thousand  lives,  vegetable  and  an- 
imal, have  emptied  into  his  as  rills  and 
brooks  empty  into  a  river.  If  his  life 
had  emptied  into  the  ocean  of  the  Divine 
Infinitude,  then  the  great  circle  of  ser- 
vice would  have  been  completed  and 
these  lower  orders  of  vegetable  and  an- 
imal life  which  have  ministered  to  him 
would  have  fulfilled  their  highest  pos- 
sibilities. But  instead  of  helping  to 
hasten  the  coming  of  God's  kingdom  in 
the  world,  they  have  been  diverted  to 
feed  and  fatten  one  who  has  never 
entered  that  kingdom  and  who  cares  not 
for  its  promotion.  Thus  the  selfish  man, 
by  receiving  other  lives  and  refusing  to 
77 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

give  his  own,  breaks  the  great  circle  of 
sacrifice  and  perverts  to  his  own  uses 
that  which  was  intended  by  divine  be- 
nevolence for  the  general  well-being. 

Surely  a  law  thus  fundamental  to  the 
universe  could  not  be  wanting  in  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Indeed,  Jesus  makes 
it  altogether  essential.  He  says  :  "  If 
any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him 
deny  himself  and  take  up  his  cross  daily 
and  follow  me."  "  Any  man  ";  that  means 
the  man  of  the  twentieth  century  as  well 
as  the  first.  It  means  the  rich  as  well 
as  the  poor.  It  means  that  the  law  of 
sacrifice  is  as  binding  on  him  who  has 
the  means  of  self-gratification  as  on  him 
who  lacks  them.  It  means  the  young 
man  as  well  as  his  father  or  mother  or 
sister.  It  means  every  man.  "  Deny 
himself"  The  emphasis  belongs  on  the 
latter  word.  Self-denial  is  not  distinc- 
78 


SELF-GIVING   OR   SACRIFICE 

lively  Christian.  Any  one  who  pro- 
poses to  accomplish  anything  in  the 
world  must  deny  himself  many  things. 
In  order  to  become  a  successful  business 
man,  or  lawyer,  or  scholar,  or  public 
speaker,  or  soldier,  or  athlete,  you  must 
deny  many  impulses  and  desires.  A 
prize-fighter  and  a  miser  deny  them- 
selves. They  deny  one  part  of  them- 
selves that  they  may  gratify  another 
part.  But  that  is  not  what  Christ 
meant.  A  fraction  of  a  man  is  not 
"  himself."  "  Let  him  deny  himself" — 
the  whole  man.  That  self-abnegation 
is  what  Jesus  here  requires  is  made 
quite  clear  by  the  remainder  of  the 
passage.  "Take  up  his  cross."  What 
does  that  mean?  Infinitely  more  than 
is  commonly  supposed.  That  word 
"  cross  "  is  one  of  the  great  words  of  the 
New  Testament,  but  it  has  been  be- 
79 


THE   TIMES  AND  YOUNG   MEN 

littled  in  common  usage.  We  talk 
about  our  "  crosses,"  meaning  thereby 
anything  that  crosses  our  inclination — 
saying  a  word  for  Christ  when  it  were 
easier  to  keep  silence,  or  holding  our 
tongue  when  we  would  rather  make  a 
biting  retort.  But  the  word  "cross" 
never  means  anything  so  meager  as  that 
in  the  Bible.  It  never  occurs  there  in  the 
plural.  It  always  means  one  thing,  as  the 
word  "  gallows  "  means  one  thing,  and 
that  is  death.  When  under  Roman  rule  a 
man  was  sentenced  to  crucifixion  he  was 
compelled  to  bear  his  cross  to  the  place 
of  execution.  Let  him  "  take  up  his 
cross  and  follow  me."  Follow  him 
where  ?  To  Golgotha,  whither  he  bore 
his  cross,  there  to  be  crucified  with  him. 
Paul  understood  it.  He  said  :  "  I  am 
crucified  with  Christ ;  nevertheless  I 

live ;  yet   not   I,  but   Christ  liveth   in 
80 


SELF-GIVING   OR   SACRIFICE 

me. " '  "//"ANY  man  will  come  after  me, 
let  him  deny  HIMSELF  and  take  up  his 
CROSS  daily  and  follow  me"*  That  is  a 
death-sentence.  Christ  is  speaking  of 
life  and  death,  for  he  immediately 
adds :  "  For  whosoever  will  save  his 
life,  shall  lose  it  ;  but  whosoever  will 
lose  his  life  for  my  sake,  the  same  shall 
save  it."  The  new  life  begins  only  with 
the  death  of  the  old.  Christ  insists  on 
the  same  law  of  sacrifice  which  we  have 
seen  illustrated  over  and  over  in  nature, 
— a  higher  life  attained  through  the 
death  of  the  lower  life,  promotion 
through  sacrifice. 

Misunderstanding  of  the  law  of  sac- 
rifice has  given  rise  to  a  great  deal  of 
fanaticism  and  cost  a  great  deal  of 
wasted  suffering,  to  which  we  shall  have 


1  Gal.  ii.  20.  ''  Luke  ix.  23. 

ftl 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

occasion  to  refer  in  a  later  chapter,  when 
an  application  of  this  law  to  personal 
problems  is  made. 

82 


VII 

THREE    GREAT    LAWS    WHICH    NEVER 

CHANGE —  (  Continued} 
III.    The  Law  of  Love 

WE  have  seen  that  the  laws  of  service 
and  sacrifice  are  binding  in  the  lower 
ranks  of  existence,  and  there  find  an 
obedience  as  mechanical  as  it  is  com- 
plete. When  we  reach  man  in  the  ris- 
ing scale  of  being  there  is  found  either 
an  unspeakably  nobler  obedience  or  dis- 
obedience ;  for  he  is  intelligent,  and  free 
either  to  choose  service  and  sacrifice  or 
to  refuse. 

He  discovers  early  in  life  that  he  en- 
joys being  served  and  does  not  enjoy 
83 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

suffering  in  the  least.  Why  should  he 
serve  others  if  he  can  make  others  serve 
him,  and  why  should  he  suffer  that  others 
may  profit  ?  Here  is  the  great  problem  : 
how  shall  a  will,  which  is  free  to  choose, 
choose  intelligently  and  freely  to  sacri- 
fice self?  The  problem  was  foreseen 
and  its  solution  begun  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  life,  countless  ages  before  the 
first  man. 

Self-interest  is  well  assured  by  the 
long  struggle  for  life  from  the  lowest 
forms  up  to  the  highest,  but  how  shall 
altruism  be  made  possible?  By  the 
equally  ancient  struggle  for  the  life  of 
others.  Let  us  learn  from  Prof.  Drum- 
mond,  who  has  done  so  much  to  place 
this  great  truth  in  its  true  perspective. 
Take  a  single  cell,  the  simplest  form  of 
life  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge — 
the  amoeba,  for  instance — and  study  it 
84 


THE    LAW   OF   LOVE 

with  a  microscope.  "Immerse  it  in  a 
suitable  medium,  and  presently  it  will 
perform  two  great  acts — the  two  which 
sum  up  life,  which  constitute  the  eternal 
distinction  between  the  living  and  the 
dead — nutrition  and  reproduction.  At 
one  moment,  in  pursuance  of  the  strug- 
gle for  life,  it  will  call  in  matter  from 
without,  and  assimilate  it  to  itself;  at 
another  moment,  in  pursuance  of  the 
struggle  for  the  life  of  others,  it  will  set 
a  portion  of  that  matter  apart,  add  to 
it,  and  finally  give  it  away  to  form  an- 
other life.  Even  at  its  dawn  life  is  re- 
ceiver and  giver ;  even  in  protoplasm 
is  self-ism  and  other-ism.  These  two 
tendencies  are  not  fortuitous.  They 
have  been  lived  into  existence.  They 
are  not  grafts  on  the  tree  of  life,  they 
are  its  nature,  its  essential  life.  They 
are  not  painted  on  the  canvas,  but 
85 


THE   TIMES  AND   YOUNG   MEN 

woven  through  it.  The  two  main  ac- 
tivities, then,  of  all  living  things  are  nu- 
trition and  reproduction.  The  discharge 
of  these  functions  in  plants,  and  largely 
in  animals,  sums  up  the  work  of  life. 
The  object  of  nutrition  is  to  secure  the 
life  of  the  individual ;  the  object  of  re- 
production is  to  secure  the  life  of  the 
species." 1  The  latter  is  always  secured 
at  cost  to  the  former — oftentimes  at  the 
cost  of  life  itself. 

If  we  continue  our  study  up  through 
higher  ranks  of  life,  we  shall  find  in- 
creasing care  and  provision  for  offspring 
until  it  becomes  wonderfully  intelligent. 
Take  an  illustration  from  the  nesting 
habits  of  the  common  mud-wasp,  fa- 
miliar to  every  country  boy.  "  The  ar- 

1  "  The  Ascent  of  Man,"  p.  220.  It  would  be  well  to  read 
the  entire  chapter  on  ' '  The  Struggle  for  the  Life  of  Others, " 
also  the  two  beautiful  chapters  which  follow. 

86 


THE   LAW   OF   LOVE 

rangements  which  the  mud-wasp  makes 
for  the  care  of  its  offspring  are  as  fol- 
lows :  At  the  time  for  nesting  the  fe- 
male proceeds  to  search  out  a  suitable 
place  for  constructing  her  egg-cases.  In 
this  choice  of  a  situation  she  shows  a 
singularly  effective  insight  into  the  acci- 
dents of  the  weather.  She  selects  places, 
such  as  those  in  the  lintels  and  jambs  of 
a  window,  where  the  nests  will  be  toler- 
ably sheltered  from  the  washing  action 
of  the  rain,  yet  she  appears  to  discern 
that  they  should  not  be  perfectly  shel- 
tered from  it.  When  she  has  found  a 
fit  site  she  searches  for  clayey  mud, 
such  as  will  become  firm  when  dried. 
The  material  is  gathered  with  rare  skill, 
the  quality  varying  but  little  wherever 
we  find  it  used.  With  this  clay  she  pro- 
ceeds to  construct  a  small  cylindrical 
case  a  few  millimeters  wide  and  about 
87 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

three  centimeters  (a  little  over  an  inch) 
long ;  rough  on  the  outside,  but  smooth 
within.  When  this  task  is  accomplished 
she  goes  forth  to  seek  spiders  of  small 
size,  limiting  the  choice  to  a  few  species 
— oftenest  only  one  kind  is  taken; 
these  she  stings  with  care  so  that  they 
may  not  be  killed  but  only  benumbed, 
in  which  state  they  may  lie  for  weeks. 
These  spiders  she  packs  into  the  cham- 
ber until  it  is  well  filled.  Then  on  these 
spiders  she  lays  an  egg,  and  finally  seals 
up  the  mouth  of  the  chamber  with  a  thin 
covering  of  clay.  This  process  is  usually 
repeated  until  several,  rarely  more  than 
half  a  dozen,  of  these  cases  are  formed, 
one  beside  the  other.  There  being  a 
certain  saving  thus  effected  in  the  mud, 
which  is  precious  because  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  transporting  it,  she  then,  as  if 

unwilling  to  venture  all  her  eggs  in  one 
88 


THE   LAW   OF   LOVE 

basket,  seeks  another  site  for  other  like 
constructions. 

"  Shortly  after  the  egg  is  laid  beside 
the  numbed  spiders,  the  young  grub 
comes  forth  and  proceeds  to  feed  on 
them.  When,  in  the  course  of  a  few 
weeks,  it  has  eaten  the  last  of  the  store, 
it  has  grown  to  the  limits  of  the  lodging- 
place.  It  then  enters  on  the  chrysalis 
state,  undergoes  in  time  its  metamor- 
phosis to  the  perfect  insect.  If  it  be  a 
female,  it  then  proceeds  to  repeat  those 
marvels  which  it  has  never  seen  done, 
and  which  it  cannot  possibly  be  taught 
to  do  by  its  predecessors,  for  they  are  all 
dead."1 

This  care,  which  is  so  minute  and 
adequate,  is  purely  instinctive.  It  has 
nothing  to  do  with  deliberate  choice,  in- 


1  Prof.  Shaler's  "  The  Individual,"  pp.  35-37. 
89 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

spired  by  affection,  for  the  mother  insect 
has  no  love  for  the  offspring  she  will 
never  see. 

Other  articulates,  like  bees  and  ants, 
have  developed  a  remarkable  social  in- 
stinct, which  cares  not  simply  for  off- 
spring but  for  the  other  members  of  the 
community.  But  this  is  quite  automatic  ; 
under  the  same  conditions  we  find  the 
same  actions  or  movements  with  little 
or  no  variation,  as  in  machinery.  Per- 
fection here  is  pure  and  simple  instinct ; 
development  on  this  line  can  never 
reach  personal  choice  and  love. 

At  this  point  nature  makes  a  new  de- 
parture ;  begins  on  another  plan,  capable 
of  infinitely  higher  possibilities  ;  she  pro- 
duces the  vertebrates.  In  the  case  of 
the  articulates  the  skeleton  is  external, 
while  with  the  vertebrates  it  is  internal. 

"The  result  is  that  the  limbs  of  the  ar- 
90 


THE   LAW   OF   LOVE 

ticulates  are  covered  by  a  hard  coating 
which  can  be  modified  to  make  jaws, 
paddles,  legs,  stings,  feelers,  or  whatever 
else  is  required  in  the  way  of  tools  to 
serve  the  needs  of  the  will."  The  insect 
finds  itself  at  the  outset  provided  with  a 
large  variety  of  very  perfect  instruments, 
which  do  its  bidding  without  study,  or 
adaptation,  or  acquired  skill.  It  does 
not  learn  by  experience,  because  it  does 
not  have  to.  It  is  not  compelled  to 
think  ;  its  processes  are  instinctive 
instead  of  rational.  The  reasoning 
power,  therefore,  is  not  developed. 

The  vertebrates,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  few  limbs,  and  the  bony  part  being 
internal  instead  of  external,  these  limbs 
are  not  developed  into  such  perfect  tools 
as  in  the  case  of  the  articulates.  While, 
therefore,  the  structure  of  the  verte- 
brates permits  of  a  much  more  perfect 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

nervous  system,  it  admits  of  much  less 
perfect  members  ;  that  is,  less  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  work  to  be  done.  Prof. 
Shaler  estimates  that  the  general  effi- 
ciency of  the  several  members  is  more 
than  ten  times  as  great  in  the  case  of  an 
articulate  as  in  that  of  a  vertebrate. 

This  limitation  on  the  part  of  the 
vertebrate  results  in  a  higher  mental 
activity.  The  animal  is  compelled  to 
think,  and  so  in  time  develops  the 
power  of  thought.  Thus  in  the  higher 
vertebrates,  and  pre-eminently  in  man 
action  becomes  rational  instead  of  in- 
stinctive ;  and  the  struggle  for  the  life 
of  others,  which  has  continued  from 
the  amoeba  up  to  man,  may  in  him  be 
the  result  of  intelligent  and  deliberate 
choice. 

Yes,  "may    be,"  for   man    is   free  to 

choose  the  good  of  another  rather  than 
92 


THE   LAW   OF   LOVE 

his  own,  but  what  motive  can  actually 
induce  such  a  choice  ?  Only  love. 
Hence  nature  has  provided  conditions 
favorable  to  the  development  of  family 
affection.1 

In  time  family  love  was  naturally  ex- 
panded to  include  the  tribe,  and  later, 
when  sufficiently  broadened  to  embrace 
the  nation,  it  became  patriotism,  which 
has  inspired  countless  men  to  give  them- 
selves, and  countless  women  to  give 
their  husbands,  sons,  brothers,  or  lovers, 
for  the  sake  of  country. 

We  are  told  that  Garibaldi  recruited 
his  soldiers  by  offering  them  hunger, 
cold,  battle  and  death.  And  men  rushed 
to  his  standard,  not  because  they  were 
indifferent  to  hardship  and  death,  but 

•The  reader  is  referred  to  Prof.  Drummond's  "Evolu- 
tion of  a  Mother"  and  "Evolution  of  a  Father"  for  an 
account  of  this  development. 

93 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

because  patriots  believed  that  by  such 
sacrifice  their  beloved  Italy  might  be 
made  united  and  free. 

Without  love  the  law  of  service  makes 
one  a  slave  ;  without  love  the  law  of 
sacrifice  makes  one  a  victim.  But  love 
makes  service  free  and  sacrifice  a  privi- 
lege. Love  transforms  the  slave  into 
a  freeman  and  the  victim  into  a  hero. 
When,  therefore,  love  became  mighty 
enough  to  conquer  selfishness,  the  laws 
of  service  and  of  sacrifice  were  vitalized 
and  glorified. 

' '  Love  took  up  the  harp  of  Life,   and  smote  on  all  the 

chords  with  might ; 

Smote  the  chord  of  Self,  that,  trembling,  passed  in  music 
out  of  sight." 

Natural  love  is  the  most  beautiful,  the 

most  exquisite,  the  noblest,  most  exalted 

production  of  nature  ;  but  more  or  less 

remotely   and   secretly,    more    or    less 

94 


THE   LAW   OF   LOVE 

blindly  or  intelligently,  it  seeks  itself. 
The  long  struggle  for  the  life  of  others 
has  not  developed  a  love  which  is  abso- 
lutely pure,  that  is,  actually  disinterested. 
Such  love  is  spiritual  life,  and  cannot  be 
developed  or  evolved,  for  life  comes 
from  above,  not  below.  Jesus  said : 
"  Except  a  man  be  born  from  above,  he 
cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God." 

Life  is  a  mystery,  but  it  is  a  fact  as  in- 
disputable as  it  is  inexplicable.  On  one 
side  of  the  line  which  separates  the  vege- 
table kingdom  from  the  mineral  there  is 
life,  and  on  the  other  side  there  is  death. 
And  we  know  that  dead  matter  crosses 
that  line  and  becomes  alive,  enters  a 
higher  kingdom,  becomes  subject  to 
higher  laws,  has  new  and  higher  capabili- 
ties and  possibilities.  And  we  know 
that  dead  matter  is  thus  transformed  only 
when  life  reaches  down  from  above 
95 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

and  lays  hold  of  it.  We  know  further 
that  living  matter  thus  lays  hold  of  dead 
matter  and  transforms  and  assimilates  it 
only  when  the  latter  has  been  properly 
prepared. 

Now  spiritual  life  is  a  fact  as  indis- 
putable and  as  inexplicable  as  animal  or 
vegetable  life ;  and  it  is  as  much  above 
intellectual  life  and  natural  love  as  vege- 
table life  is  above  inorganic  matter.  It 
belongs  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
when  it  finds  human  nature  that  has 
been  properly  prepared  it  lays  hold  of 
it  and  lifts  it  up  into  a  higher  kingdom, 
where  it  becomes  subject  to  higher  laws, 
lives  a  new  life,  has  new  and  higher  capa- 
bilities, a  new  and  higher  blessedness. 

As  was  said  above,  this  spiritual  life  is 
disinterested  love.  That  is  the  love 
that  God  is.  The  moment  love  becomes 

truly  unselfish  it  becomes  truly  divine. 
96 


THE    LAW   OF   LOVE 

That  is  the  divine  spark  which,  entering 
the  human  heart,  is  the  beginning  of 
eternal  life ;  that  is  the  birth  "  from 
above"  of  which  Jesus  spoke  and  which 
he  required. 

Thus  love  is  the  fundamental  law  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is  only  by 
obeying  that  law  that  man  can  enter 
that  kingdom.  Hence  the  requirement, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and 
with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy 
mind ;  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." l 
And  when  we  really  love,  it  is  as  natural 
for  us  to  serve  and  to  sacrifice  as  it  is  for 
flowers  to  bloom  or  for  light  to  shine, 
because  service  and  sacrifice  are  the 
natural  expression  of  that  spiritual  life 
which  we  call  love. 

1  Luke  x.  27. 

97 


VIII 

THE    THREE     GREAT     LAWS    APPLIED    TO 
THE    SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

THE  air  is  full  of  interrogation-points. 
The  traditional  small  boy,  who  for  so 
many  ages  has  amused  and  perplexed 
his  elders  with  his  many  questions,  is 
fairly  outdone  by  the  average  man  of 
to-day  who  is  wide-awake. 

Here  are  some  of  the  "  burning  ques- 
tions "  which  keep  the  social  caldron 
boiling  with  unrest. 

Are  "  all  men  created  free  and  equal," 
as  the  Declaration  of  Independence  de- 
clares ?  If  a  man  has  a  right  to  freedom, 

has  his  freedom  any  natural  or  just  limi- 
98 


THE   SOCIAL    PROBLEM 

tations  ?  If  so,  what  ?  In  what  sense 
is  one  man  "  as  good  as  another  "  ?  That 
is,  in  what  sense  are  all  men  equal  ? 

Has  any  one  a  right  to  property?  or  is 
it  true,  as  the  French  philosopher,  Proud- 
hon,  said,  that  "  property  is  theft  "  ?  If 
a  man  has  a  right  to  property,  is  there 
any  limit  to  the  amount  he  has  a  right 
to  hold  ?  Has  he  any  right  to  a  su- 
perfluity while  others,  equally  deserving, 
are  in  want  ?  If  a  man  has  a  right  to 
property,  has  he  a  right  to  spend  it  as 
he  pleases  ?  Has  any  one  a  right  to 
property  in  land  ?  or  is  the  land  the  nat- 
ural heritage  of  all  the  people  ? 

Has  every  man  a  right  to  live  ?  If  so, 
has  he  a  right  to  the  means  of  life  ?  And 
has  he  a  right  to  do  with  his  life  what  he 
pleases  ?  Has  he  a  right  to  self-develop- 
ment— to  make  the  most  of  himself? 
If  so,  how  is  that  right  to  be  secured  ? 
99 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

Is  it  the  duty  of  every  able-bodied  per- 
son to  work  ?  If  so,  how  is  that  obliga- 
tion to  be  enforced  ?  Has  every  one  a 
right  to  work  ?  If  so,  whose  duty  is  it 
to  furnish  employment  ?  Is  labor  the 
source  of  all  wealth?  What  are  the 
rights  of  labor  ?  and  what  are  the  rights 
of  capital  ?  What  are  the  relations  of 
the  two  ?  If  they  have  rights,  have  they 
not  also  duties?  What  are  the  duties 
of  each  ?  What  are  the  relations  of  or- 
ganized and  unorganized  labor  ?  Has 
unorganized  labor  no  rights  ?  How  is 
the  centralization  of  industrial  power  to 
be  harmonized  with  the  distribution  of 
political  power?  That  is,  how  is  or- 
ganized industry  to  be  reconciled  with 
democracy  ? 

What  of  the  marriage  relation  ?  Is 
it  to  be  limited  by  the  will  of  the 
contracting  parties  ?  What  are  the 

ICO 


THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

rights  and  duties  of  the  state  touching 
marriage  ? 

These  are  some  of  the  many  questions 
called  "  social,"  though  of  course  they 
all  concern  individuals,  because  society  is 
composed  of  individuals. 

Social  problems  cannot  be  solved 
without  reference  to  the  individual,  and 
personal  problems  cannot  be  solved  with- 
out reference  to  society ;  still  the  two 
classes  should  be  clearly  distinguished. 

The  problems  of  society  pertain 
primarily  to  our  relations  with  each 
other  ;  while  the  problems  of  the  in- 
dividual are  fundamentally  questions  of 
character. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  about  "  The 
Social  Question,"  which  means  different 
things  according  to  what  particular 
social  question  the  writer  or  speaker 

deems  of  supreme  importance.     Often  it 
101 


THE    TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

means  the  labor  question  ;  and  some- 
times it  is  used  to  include  human  better- 
ment in  general ;  but,  strictly  speaking, 
the  social  question  is  the  question  of 
meris  relations  with  each  other.  It 
therefore  includes  a  thousand  different 
but  related  questions,  and  is  infinitely 
complex.  The  only  hope  of  not  getting 
lost  in  such  a  labyrinth  is  in  follow- 
ing the  thread  of  some  fundamental 
principle. 

Evidently  social  questions  have  been 
forced  to  the  front  by  the  great  changes 
which  were  discussed  in  Chapters  II  and 
III,  and  which,  as  we  have  seen,  con- 
stitute a  profound  movement  from  an 
individualistic  to  a  social  or  collective 
type  of  civilization. 

The  closer  men's  relations  are,  the 
greater  is  the  friction  developed,  unless 

they  are  right  relations.     The  fact  that 
1 02 


THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

the  forcing  of  men  into  multiplied  and 
close  relations  has  produced  so  much 
soreness  is  proof  that  many  of  those  re- 
lations are  wrong  and  require  readjust- 
ment ;  hence  the  many  social  questions 
and  popular  discontent. 

Many  tell  us  that  readjustment  will 
not  suffice,  that  there  must  be  revolu- 
tion which  will  utterly  destroy  the  exist- 
ing social  system  ;  and  they  have  a  new 
system  all  ready  at  hand  to  take  its  place. 
Such  agitators  do  not  seem  to  know  that 
society  is  as  much  a  growth  as  is  a  tree 
or  a  man  ;  and  their  proposition  to  de- 
stroy its  diseases  by  destroying  its  life 
reminds  one  of  Burke's  comment  on 
the  French  revolutionists.  "We  are 
taught,"  he  says,  "  to  look  with  horror 
on  those  children  of  their  country  who 
are  prompt  rashly  to  hack  that  aged 

parent  in  pieces,  and  put  him  into  the 
103 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

kettle  of  magicians,  in  hopes  that  by 
their  poisonous  weeds  and  wild  incan- 
tations they  may  regenerate  the  pater- 
nal constitution,  and  renovate  their  fa- 
ther's life." 

The  only  hope  of  social  health  lies  in 
obedience  to  the  laws  which  belong  to 
the  constitution  of  society  ;  that  is,  in 
bringing  society  to  a  normal  life. 

Theology  has  made  marked  advance 
in  recent  years  by  discovering  that  our 
relations  with  God  are  vital  rather  than 
legal ;  and  we  shall  make  great  progress 
in  our  knowledge  of  society  when  we 
recognize  the  fact  that  its  fundamental 
laws  are  vital,  not  such  as  may  be  en- 
acted by  a  legislature  or  promulgated  by 
a  Czar. 

Herbert  Spencer  says  :  "  All  phenom- 
ena displayed  by  a  nation  are  phenom- 
ena of  life,  and  are  dependent  on  the 
104 


THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

laws  of  life."  This  is  true  of  every  so- 
cial organization,  whether  it  includes  a 
nation  or  only  a  village. 

Glance,  then,  at  two  of  the  fundamen- 
tal laws  of  all  life,  which  we  shall  find 
to  be  laws  of  society.  In  the  vegetable 
world  take  the  rose-tree.  The  root  sup- 
plies every  part  of  it  with  sap,  and  firmly 
anchors  the  whole  in  the  ground ;  the 
bark  transmits  the  sap  to  every  part ; 
the  stalk  supports  every  part ;  the  leaves 
breathe  for  every  part  ;  thus  each  part 
serves  all  the  others. 

In  the  animal  world  take  the  human 
body.  The  brain  does  not  think  for 
itself  simply,  but  for  the  whole  man.  The 
eyes  do  not  see  for  themselves,  nor  do 
the  hands  work  for  themselves,  nor  the 
feet  walk  for  themselves,  nor  does  the 
heart  beat  for  itself ;  each  member  and 

each  organ  serves  all  the  others.     Thus 
105 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

wherever  we  find  life  we  find  the  law  of 
service. 

Again,  as  we  have  already  seen,  from 
the  lowest  form  of  life  to  the  highest, 
there  is  a  struggle  for  the  life  of  others, 
and  wherever  or  whenever  this  struggle 
takes  place  there  is  self-giving  foi 
another^ 

Every  living  thing,  whether  in  thft 
vegetable  or  animal  world,  is  composed 
of  living  cells.  Pascal  says  that  each 
community  is  a  man  ;  meaning,  I  sup^ 
pose,  that  each  community  has  an  intel- 
ligent life  of  its  own.  We  may  say  with 
equal  truth  that  every  man  is  a  com- 
munity. His  body  is  constructed  of 
millions  of  these  living  cells,  each  of 
which  is  capable  of  sensation,  of  nutri- 
tion, of  automatic  motion,  and  of  repro- 
ducing its  kind.  These  individual  lives 

sustain    wonderful    relations    to    each 
106 


THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

other.  Some  of  these  cells  combine  to 
build  up  bone,  others  to  form  cartilage, 
others  muscle,  others  fat,  others  nerves, 
others  blood  and  the  like.  Together 
these  numberless  individual  cells  form  a 
most  complex  community  called  man, 
and  these  many  lives  merge  into  one 
life,  which  is  capable  of  self-conscious- 
ness. 

Now  these  little  cells  are  constantly 
giving  their  lives  for  the  good  of  the 
whole  body.  We  say  that  in  all  life 
there  is  a  process  of  knitting  and  a 
process  of  raveling.  The  "  knitting " 
is  the  birth  of  new  cells,  and  the  "  ravel- 
ing" is  the  death  of  old  ones.  Vast 
numbers  of  these  cells  die  every  day 
that  the  body  may  do  its  daily  work. 
You  cannot  work  nor  play,  you  cannot 
speak  nor  think,  you  cannot  suffer  nor 

enjoy,  without  its  costing  the  lives  of 
107 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

these  little  cells.  Thus  sacrifice  is  seen 
to  be  a  fundamental  law  of  life. 

Turn  now  to  society.  A  human  so- 
ciety is  not  composed  of  individual  men, 
women,  and  children  as  a  sea-beach  is 
composed  of  individual  grains  of  sand. 
A  ship-load  of  people  just  landed  on  an 
uninhabited  island,  or  a  train-load  of 
immigrants  set  down  on  an  empty 
prairie,  would  not  constitute  a  society. 
Not  until  they  begin  to  enter  into  rela- 
tions of  service  with  each  other,  and 
there  comes  to  be  some  sort  of  organized 
life,  would  there  be  the  beginnings  of  a 
society. 

Now  individuals  may  be  called  social 
cells,  which,  entering  into  certain  rela- 
tions with  each  other,  constitute  society. 
These  social  cells,  like  the  cells  of  the 
body,  are  capable  of  sensation,  nutrition, 

locomotion,  and  reproduction  ;  but,  un- 
108 


THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

like  the  cells  of  the  body,  the  social  cells 
are  also  endowed  with  self-consciousness 
and  will,  which  makes  them  capable  of 
selfishness  and  of  rebellion  against  the 
laws  of  service  and  sacrifice. 

If  we  imagine  the  cells  of  the  body 
capable  of  selfish  thought  and  action, 
and  suppose  that  they  each  one  adopt 
the  motto,  "  Every  cell  for  itself,"  I 
assure  you  we  should  sing  that  old 
hymn,  "  I  would  not  live  alway,"  with 
new  unction,  for  life  would  not  be  worth 
living. 

Sometimes  foreign  cells,  which  do  not 
obey  the  laws  of  the  body,  are  in- 
troduced into  it  and  there  multiply.  The 
result  is  some  zymotic  disease  like 
typhoid  fever,  diphtheria,  or  smallpox. 
If  this  invasion  goes  far  enough  to  over- 
come the  vital  forces  of  the  body,  it  re- 
sults in  death,  which  is  physical  anarchy. 
109 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

In  like  manner  the  rebellion  of  social 
cells  against  the  laws  of  the  body  politic 
is  social  disease,  and  if  it  goes  far 
enough,  results  in  anarchy,  which  is  social 
death. 

Some  social  diseases  spring  from 
ignorance  of  social  laws,  but  most  of 
them,  and  by  far  the  most  dangerous, 
result  from  disobeying  the  law  of  service. 
Take  two  or  three  illustrations,  and  see 
if  this  is  not  the  correct  diagnosis. 

One  of  the  greatest  evils  of  our  new 
industrial  civilization,  one  of  the  most 
dangerous  diseases  of  our  new  social  life, 
is  the  misgovernment  of  our  great  cities, 
which  have  become  like  huge  ulcers  on 
the  body  politic. 

Most  of  this  maladministration  re- 
sults from  the  fact  that  the  men  who 
control  municipal  affairs  have  carried 

over  into  these  new  and  complex  social 
no 


THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

conditions  the  old  individualistic  spirit 
expressed  in  the  motto,  "  Every  man 
for  himself."  They  are  in  politics  for 
what  they  can  get  out  of  it.  They  seek 
office,  and  administer  the  same,  not  with 
a  view  to  serving  the  public  interests, 
but  with  a  view  to  making  the  city  serve 
their  private  interests.  This  is  the  ex- 
planation of  the  festering  corruption  of 
our  large  municipalities.  Place  in  office 
men  who  desire  to  obey  the  law  of  ser- 
vice, and  who  know  how  to  serve,  and 
our  municipal  government  would  at  once 
become  clean  and  wholesome. 

For  another  illustration  glance  at  the 
saloon,  which  is  like  a  cancerous  growth. 
Intemperance  is  of  course  a  personal 
problem,  but  the  liquor  traffic  is  a  social 
problem,  because  it  is  concerned  with  re- 
lations. 

This  traffic  is  conducted,  not  under 
in 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

the  law  of  Need  and  Service,  which  is  a 
vital  law,  but  under  that  of  Demand  and 
Supply,  which  is  a  purely  commercial 
law,  and  which  always  ignores  and  often 
violates  the  law  of  service.  Rum  is  not 
manufactured  and  sold  because  it  is 
needed,  but  because  it  is  wanted;  and 
the  motive  of  the  traffic  is  not  service, 
but  gain.  If  for  one  day  the  saloon 
could  be  brought  under  the  law  of  need 
and  service,  it  would  be  the  "dryest" 
day  since  man  first  put  the  bottle  to  his 
neighbor's  lips. 

Turn  to  one  other  social  disorder — 
the  strife  between  labor  and  capital. 
They  are  pitched  over  against  each  other 
like  two  hostile  armies.  Labor  is  or- 
ganized, not  that  it  may  render  more  ef- 
ficient service  to  society,  but  with  a  view 
to  enforcing  its  demands  on  capital ;  and 

capital   is  massed,  not   with  a  view  to 
112 


THE   SOCIAL   PROBLEM 

more  effective  service,  but  with  reference 
to  more  effective  competition.  Each 
seeking  to  get  all  it  can  for  itself  they 
imagine  that  their  interests  are  conflict- 
ing, and  so  they  often  come  to  blows, 
and  always  with  mutual  injury. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  each  is  as  depen- 
dent on  the  other  as  are  the  two  wings 
of  a  bird ;  and  if  each  sought  to  serve, 
they  would  soon  discover  that  their  in- 
terests are  mutual.  If  sacrifice  were 
necessary,  and  each  were  more  ready  to 
make  it  than  to  require  it,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  quarrel.  Thus  obedience 
to  the  laws  of  service  and  sacrifice  would 
bring  industrial  peace. 

It  has  been  made  sufficiently  evident 
that  obedience  to  the  laws  of  service  and 
sacrifice  would  heal  our  social  diseases. 
But  you  will  tell  me  that  I  have  pre- 
scribed an  impossible  remedy,  because 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

men  are  selfish  and  would  rather  be 
served  than  to  serve,  would  rather  profit 
by  the  sacrifice  of  another  than  sacrifice 
self  for  another's  profit. 

How,  then,  can  these  two  laws  be 
vitalized  and  made  operative  ?  We  have 
already  seen  ;  love  destroys  selfishness 
and  makes  service  and  sacrifice  a  joy. 
Love,  therefore,  is  the  third  great  social 
law,  and  the  most  fundamental  of  the 
three. 

We  find,  then,  that  the  three  great  laws 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  are  the  three 
great  social  laws,  on  obedience  to  which 
depends  the  health  of  society. 

Thus  the  realization  of  Jesus'  social 
ideal — the  full  coming  of  the  kingdom 
of  God — will  be  the  perfect  solution  of 
the  Social  Problem. 
114 


IX 

THE     THREE     GREAT     LAWS     APPLIED     TO 

PERSONAL      PROBLEMS THE      USE      OF 

TIME THE    BODY EDUCATION 

ROBINSON  CRUSOE,  before  he  found 
his  man  Friday,  might  have  cultivated 
patience,  temperance,  purity,  faith,  hope, 
and  various  other  Christian  virtues,  but 
he  would  have  lacked  adequate  oppor- 
tunity for  the  practice  of  service  and 
sacrifice,  and  for  the  exercise  of  love, 
because  these  imply  our  fellow  men  as 
objects. 

The  laws  of  service,  sacrifice,  and  love 
are  social,  as  we  have  seen,  and  for  this 
very  reason  they  are  most  helpful  in 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

solving  personal  problems,  for  such 
problems,  as  has  been  already  said,  can- 
not be  solved  without  reference  to  so- 
ciety. These  problems  are  of  course 
as  old  as  man,  but  our  new  social  rela- 
tions throw  on  them  a  new  light,  which 
makes  possible  a  new  and  better  under- 
standing of  them.  Let  us,  therefore, 
apply  these  three  great  laws  to  some 
of  the  most  common  personal  problems 
which  present  themselves  to  young  men 
for  solution. 

When  you  take  an  electric  car  some 
winter  evening,  you  find  it  propelled, 
lighted,  and  warmed  by  electricity.  The 
electric  current  is  converted  now  into 
power,  now  into  light,  and  now  into  heat. 
In  somewhat  the  same  manner  the  true 
social  spirit  expresses  itself  in  love, 
sacrifice,  and  service.  These  are  not 

identical,  but  they  are,  so  to  speak,  con- 
116 


THE    USE    OF   TIME 

vertlble.  Genuine  love  seeks  to  utter 
itself  in  sacrifice  and  service  : 

"  True  love  is  humble,  thereby  it  is  known, 
Girded  for  service,  seeking  not  its  own." 

Genuine  sacrifice  begets  love  and,  aims 
to  serve  ;  and  genuine  service  is  inspired 
by  love,  and  therefore  does  not  stop  short 
of  sacrifice  when  needful.  It  is  some- 
times important  to  distinguish  the  three 
each  from  the  others,  but  it  will  simplify 
the  present  discussion  to  include  both 
sacrifice  and  love  under  the  law  of  ser- 
vice, understanding  thereby  a  service 
whose  motive  is  love  and  whose  measure 
is  sacrifice. 

Let  us  first  apply  this  law  of  service 
to  the  problem  of 

The  Use  of  Time 

The  average  young  man  in  the  United 
States  is  well  employed  during  working 
117 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

hours,  and  has  considerable  leisure  time 
every  day.  What  shall  he  do  with  it  ? 
He  is  not  likely  to  make  the  best  use  of 
it  unless  he  appraises  it  at  its  true  value. 
Never  in  any  age  of  the  world  has 
time  been  worth  so  much  as  it  is  now, 
because  never  before  has  it  represented 
so  much.  It  is  valuable  according  to 
what  you  can  do  with  it ;  hence  with  the 
invention  of  machinery  and  of  time-sav- 
ing processes,  and  with  the  multiplica- 
tion of  opportunities,  it  has  steadily  ap- 
preciated in  value.  Men  get  a  higher 
price  for  their  time  now  than  ever  be 
fore ;  and  to  waste  it  now  is  a  greater 
waste  than  ever  before.  For  like  rea- 
sons time  is  worth  more  here  in  America 
than  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  If,  as 
Seneca  says,  ' '  To  covet  time  is  a  vir- 
tue," then  our  business  men  are  charac- 
1x8 


THE   USE   OF   TIME 

terized  by  at  least  one  virtue  to  an  excep- 
tional degree. 

For  mere  money-making  time  is  worth 
more  to  the  adult  than  to  the  youth  or 
child  ;  but  for  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge and  discipline,  the  formation  of 
right  habits  and  character,  on  which  all 
true  success  depends,  a  year  is  worth  five 
times  as  much  to  the  youth  as  to  the 
matured  man.  And  yet  no  one  is  so 
prodigal  of  time  as  are  the  young ;  they 
throw  it  away  by  the  hour  and  wish  it 
away  by  the  year. 

If  it  is  true,  as  we  are  told,  that  "  Time 
is  the  stuff  that  life  is  made  of,"  then 
wasting  time  is  wasting  life,  and  stealing 
time  is  stealing  life,  and  "  killing  time" 
is  a  kind  of  suicide  or  murder — perhaps 
both,  for  an  idler  very  commonly  steals 
another's  time  with  which  to  kill  his  own. 

These  time-thieves  are  nearly  all  out  of 
119 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

jail  and  are  to  be  found  in  the  "  best 
society."  I  would  rather  meet  a  pick- 
pocket. 

The  aristocracy  of  Europe  has  always 
furnished  many  professional  idlers,  a 
class  from  which  we  have  been  prac- 
tically free  in  the  United  States  until 
recent  years.  The  growth  of  great  cor- 
porations and  trusts  is  massing  vast  sums 
under  the  management  of  great  captains 
of  industry,  with  the  result  that  there  are 
now  increasing  numbers  who  do  not 
manage  their  own  property,  and  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it  except  to  draw 
their  interest  and  cash  their  coupons. 

Some  of  this  class  devote  their  time  to 
the  general  good,  but  many  more  find 
nothing  to  do  except  to  flit  from  conti- 
nent to  continent  in  the  vain  attempt 
to  amuse  themselves.  The  man  who 

has  nothing  to  do,  and  who  does  it,  who 
120 


THE   USE   OF  TIME 

in  all  the  wide  world's  activities  and 
needs  finds  nothing  to  arouse  and  attract 
him,  ought  to  become  a  Buddhist  and 
at  his  next  incarnation  enter  life  as  an 
oyster  or  a  sponge.  The  idler  has  no 
title  to  the  space  he  cumbers ;  he  is  in 
the  world's  way,  and  if  he  had  any 
sense  of  the  eternal  fitness  of  things, 
he  would  die. 

Never  think  of  envying  these  idlers, 
young  men  ;  and  never  hope  to  join 
them.  They  are  more  to  be  pitied  than 
the  day-laborers  who  with  pick  and 
shovel  earn  a  meager  living  on  the  high- 
way. The  latter  use  of  time  is  not  de- 
moralizing and  renders  a  worthy  service 
to  society. 

There  are  others  who  waste  time  in  a 
busy  idleness.  They  are  always  doing, 
but  when  all  is  done  it  amounts  to  noth- 
ing. They  spend  their  lives,  as  Grotius 
121 


THE   TIMES  AND   YOUNG   MEN 

unjustly  said  of  himself,  "  laboriously 
doing  nothing."  We  read  of  a  shepherd 
who  spent  fifteen  years  in  learning  per- 
fectly to  balance  a  pole  on  his  chin.  He 
succeeded,  but  what  of  it  ? 

Here  is  a  man  who  is  determined  to 
die  rich.  He  makes  the  accumulation 
of  money  not  a  means  to  some  worthy 
end,  but  only  a  means  to  accumulating 
more  money  as  an  end.  He  wastes  no 
time.  Every  passing  moment  falls  into 
his  coffers  with  a  chink — a  piece  of  gold ; 
and  yet  he  wastes  all  his  time,  for  he 
makes  no  use  of  the  power  he  accumu- 
lates. Well,  he  "dies  rich,"  but  what 
of  it?  If  you  happen  to  meet  him  a 
hundred  years  hence,  ask  him,  "  What  of 
it  ?"  He  spent  his  life  balancing  a  pole 
on  his  chin. 

Time  is  wasted  so  far  as  it  is  not  put 
to  the  best  use.  This  does  not  mean 

122 


THE   USE   OF   TIME 

that  all  of  our  waking  hours  should  be 
devoted  to  work.  If  they  were,  a  large 
proportion  of  our  time  would  be  worse 
than  wasted.  There  is  a  time  to  work 
and  a  time  to  play,  a  time  to  sleep,  a 
time  to  read,  a  time  for  worship,  and  a 
time  for  social  intercourse — a  time  for 
many  legitimate  things.  Here,  then,  is 
the  problem  of  the  use  of  time — to  deter- 
mine what  are  its  legitimate  uses,  and 
then  properly  to  apportion  time  among 
them. 

This  problem  is  easily  solved  by  apply- 
ing to  it  the  law  of  service. 

When  a  young  man  devotes  his  whole 
life  to  the  highest  service,  he  will  aim  to 
devote  his  whole  time  to  the  best  use. 
If  he  is  intelligent,  he  will  aim  at  the 
largest  possible  outcome  of  usefulness, 
not  for  a  year  nor  five  years,  but  for  his 

whole  life.     He  will  see  that  the  neces- 
123 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

sary  time  spent  in  preparation  for  his 
life-work  is  better  spent  than  as  if  he  had 
rushed  into  it  ill  prepared.  Time  spent 
in  sharpening  the  axe  may  well  be  spared 
from  swinging  it. 

If  wise,  he  will  learn  that  time  taken 
for  needed  rest  and  recreation  is  not 
taken  from  work,  but  added  to  it ;  will 
learn  that  if  he  works  too  much,  he  will 
accomplish  too  little.  He  will  not  work 
in  order  to  play,  but  play  in  order  to 
work.  He  will  not  spend  his  time  in 
seeking  his  own  happiness,  but  find  his 
happiness  in  seeking  to  serve. 

And  when  he  has  learned  intelligently 
to  apply  the  law  of  service,  not  simply 
to  the  hours  spent  at  the  desk,  or  bench, 
or  plow,  but  to  the  twenty-four  hours  of 
every  day,  and  to  the  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  days  of  every  year,  he  will  have 

solved  the  problem  of  the  use  of  time. 

124 


THE   BODY 

Evidently,  getting  the  most  good  out 
of  life,  which  is  getting  the  most  service 
into  it,  raises  the  problem  of 
The  Body 

The  longer  I  live,  the  more  do  I  re- 
spect the  body — its  needs,  its  uses,  its 
importance.  There  can  be  little  useful' 
ness,  little  intelligence,  little  moral  char- 
acter, little  happiness  without  the  right 
sort  of  a  body.  Everything  we  value 
in  life  is  more  or  less  conditioned  by  it. 

For  many  ages  Christians  had  a  radi- 
cally wrong  conception  of  the  body. 
They  thought  it  was  the  enemy  of  the 
ipirit,  and  despised  and  abused  it  accord- 
ingly. A  favorite  way  of  cultivating 
and  exhibiting  piety  was  by  neglecting, 
starving,  and  lacerating  the  body. 

This  was  largely  due  no  doubt  to  mis- 
understanding the  New  Testament  word 

translated   "flesh."     Often  it  means  the 
125 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

body,  and  often  it  means  the  carnal 
nature.  Men  used  to  think  that  "  mor- 
tifying the  deeds  of  the  flesh"  meant 
mortifying  or  depleting  the  body.  But 
among  the  works  of  the  "flesh"  Paul 
specifies  idolatry,  hatred,  variance,  emu- 
lations, wrath,  strife,  seditions,  heresies, 
envyings,  and  the  like  ;  showing  that  by 
"  flesh "  in  such  connection  he  meant 
the  carnal  nature.  He  wrote  to  the 
Romans,  "  Ye  are  not  in  the  flesh,  but 
in  the  spirit " ;  in  which  connection 
"flesh"  could  not  possibly  mean  body. 

So  far  from  despising  the  body,  Paul 
reverenced  it  as  the  temple  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Surely  no  one  would  think  he 
could  honor  God  by  defacing  or  under- 
mining or  destroying  his  temple. 

We  are  now  getting  back  to  the  Paul' 
ine  reverence  for  the  body,  and  that  rev- 
erence is  being  enhanced  by  the  disco v- 
126 


THE   BODY 

cries  of  science,  which  are  revealing  the 
interdependence  of  body  and  soul.  We 
know  that  the  physical  life  profoundly 
affects  the  mental  and  spiritual  life. 
Hence  if  we  do  not,  like  the  old  Greeks, 
admire  and  value  the  body  for  its  own 
sake,  we  are  forced  to  care  for  it  and  to 
respect  it  for  the  sake  of  the  soul,  of 
which  it  is  the  instrument. 

When,  therefore,  we  accept  service  as 
the  law  of  life,  we  are  at  once  provided 
with  a  good  working  rule  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  body.  Give  it  such  care 
and  cultivation  as  will  enable  you  to  get 
the  largest  possible  amount  of  service 
out  of  it.  By  this  rule  you  can  regulate 
sleep,  food,  and  exercise. 

An  attempt  to  make  an  intelligent 
application  of  this  rule  at  once  raises  the 
question  of  athletics. 

It  is  a  matter  for  hearty  congratula- 
127 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

tion  that  during  the  past  twenty  years 
there  has  been  a  great  and  healthy 
growth  of  interest  in  what  used  to  be 
called  "  manly "  sports.  But  the  par- 
ticipation of  young  women  in  tennis, 
golf,  basket-ball,  in  wheeling,  boating, 
swimming,  coasting,  skating,  and  the 
like,  forbids  all  such  use  of  this  discrim- 
inating, masculine  adjective, 

We  may  thank  out-of-door  sports  for 
the  gratifying  and  well-established  fact 
that  most  young  women  of  twenty,  to- 
day, are  taller  than  their  mothers.  By 
the  same  means  a  similar  advance  has 
been  made  by  many  young  men,  though 
many  have  stunted  their  growth  by  the 
use  of  tobacco. 

Increased  interest  in  athletics  is 
doing  much  for  physical  culture,  which 
promises  much  for  coming  generations. 

But  in  aiming  at  the  highest  possible 
128 


THE    BODY 

physical  effectiveness,  it  is  quite  possible 
to  carry  muscular  development  too  far. 
Our  ideas  of  bodily  perfection  come 
down  to  us  from  the  old  Greeks.  Very 
likely  the  life  or  death  of  the  warrior, 
and  the  freedom  or  slavery  of  his  wife 
and  children,  depended  on  his  effective- 
ness in  hand-to-hand  combat ;  hence 
muscular  strength  and  agility  were  made 
the  object  of  long  and  severe  training. 
But  modern  civilization  is  making  less 
and  less  demand  on  muscle  both  in 
peace  and  war,  and  more  and  more  on 
brain  and  nerve.  Vitality  or  nervous 
force  is  the  thing  that  tells  in  the  fierce 
competition  of  modern  life. 

Bodily  perfection  is  not  an  absolute 
but  a  relative  thing,  because  the  body  is 
to  be  an  instrument  for  service.  The 
most  perfect  body  to-day,  therefore,  is 

not  that  which  fits  its  possessor  for  the 
129 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

prize-ring,  but  that  which  furnishes  to 
him  the  largest  and  best-sustained  supply 
of  nervous  energy. 

The  wisest  physical  training,  then, 
does  not  aim  at  record-breaking,  but  at 
the  most  perfect  general  health,  taking 
care  not  to  sacrifice  nervous  force  to 
muscular  development. 

Let  us  turn  now  from  the  subject  of 
physical  training  to  the  problem  of 
Education 

You  may  be  questioning  what  sort  of 
an  education  to  seek,  whether  scientific, 
classical,  business,  musical,  or  some  other 
kind.  You  may  be  in  doubt  how  far  to 
pursue  it ;  or  you  may  want  to  know 
what  to  do  with  a  liberal  education  al- 
ready gained. 

If  you  were  asked  why  you  value  an 
education,  one  would  reply,  Because  I 
believe  it  will  enable  me  to  make  a  bet- 
130 


EDUCATION 

ter  living ;  another  would  say,  Because 
it  will  give  me  a  better  social  position ; 
another,  Because  I  can  achieve  a  greater 
professional  success  ;  another,  Because 
it  would  increase  my  influence  ;  another, 
Because  education  is  necessary  to  "  self- 
realization  ";  another,  Because  I  love 
knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  and  the 
pursuit  of  it  is  my  delight. 

Each  of  these  replies  would  be  right 
in  a  sense ;  that  is,  an  education  would 
be  a  valuable  means  to  the  end  proposed 
in  each  instance,  but  no  one  of  these 
replies  points  to  an  end  outside  of  self. 
Each  of  these  objects  is  desirable  as  a 
subordinate  end,  but  no  one  of  them  is 
worthy  to  be  the  supreme  end  of  life. 

The  will,  which  determines  the  moral 
character,  seeks  an  end  which  is  only  a 
means  to  something  else  as  an  end,  and 
that,  again,  is  a  means  to  still  another 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

end.  Thus  when  you  eat,  your  food  is 
a  means  to  strength  as  an  end  ;  your 
strength  is  a  means  to  your  work  as  an 
end ;  your  work  is  a  means  to  your 
salary  as  an  end ;  your  salary  may  be  a 
means  to  pleasure,  or  an  education,  or  an 
investment,  or  something  else.  That  is, 
the  life  of  the  will  is  made  up  of  links 
of  choice,  each  link  being  a  means  to 
the  one  following  as  an  end.  But  the 
chain  must  come  to  its  last  link,  and  the 
question  which  determines  character 
and  life  is,  To  what  is  this  last  link 
fastened  ?  On  that  will  hang  the  whole 
chain,  for  that  is  the  "supreme  end," 
the  chief  object  in  life.  The  chain  will 
certainly  end  either  in  self,  or  in  God 
and  humanity. 

If  through  an  education  a  young  man 
seeks  social  position  or  influence  or  pro- 
fessional success  or  self-development  for 
132 


EDUCATION 

purely  personal  ends,  he  is  as  selfish,  as 
anti-social,  as  the  man  who  seeks  gold 
for  purely  personal  ends. 

Men  talk  about  art  for  art's  sake,  lit- 
erature for  literature's  sake,  knowledge 
for  the  sake  of  knowledge.  Probably 
what  they  really  mean  is  that  they  are 
not  mercenary,  that  they  are  not  prosti- 
tuting their  art  or  learning  as  a  means 
to  money  as  an  end.  But  their  art  or 
learning  is  necessarily  a  means  to  some 
end.  If  there  were  no  fellow  men  to 
admire  it  or  profit  by  it,  or  if  they  them- 
selves had  no  pleasure  in  it,  they  would 
not  pursue  it.  Prof.  Huxley  insisted 
that  the  supreme  motive  is  the  desire 
to  know,  and  that  the  best  fruit  is  truth. 
But  he  did  not  spend  his  life  finding 
out  how  many  pins  would  fill  a  bushel 
measure,  or  how  many  letters  there  are 
in  the  Bible.  He  despised  the  school- 
133 


men  who  spent  time  discussing  how 
many  angels  could  dance  on  the  point 
of  a  needle.  Such  knowledge,  if  it 
could  be  arrived  at,  afforded  him  no  sat- 
isfaction, sustained  no  relations  to  sci- 
ence, contributed  nothing  to  human  well- 
being.  The  fact  that  he  pursued  one 
kind  of  knowledge  rather  than  another 
shows  that  he  did  not  seek  knowl- 
edge for  the  sake  of  knowledge  simply, 
but  for  the  sake  of  certain  ends  to  which 
some  kinds  of  knowledge  contribute 
and  other  kinds  do  not.  It  is  neces- 
sarily true  of  the  scholar  and  artist,  as  of 
every  one  else,  that  his  supreme  end  is 
either  his  own  satisfaction  or  the  glory 
of  God  and  the  good  of  humanity. 

"Culture  for  the  sake  of  culture"  or 
"  knowledge  for  the  sake  of  knowledge" 
is  really  the  language  of  refined  selfish- 
ness.    He  who  enriches  his  mind  with 
134 


EDUCATION 

stores  of  truth  simply  that  they  may  be 
his  is  a  miser.  To  be  sure  the  plane  of 
his  life  is  not  so  low  as  that  of  the  lover 
of  gold ;  but  the  supreme  object  of  life 
is  the  same,  viz.  self-satisfaction,  and 
therefore  the  moral  character  is  essen- 
tially the  same.  Like  the  miser,  he 
makes  a  miserable  failure  of  life,  because 
he  selfishly  hoards  power  which  was 
entrusted  to  him  for  service. 

If  you  apply  the  law  of  service  to  the 
problem  of  education,  you  will  aim  by 
training  so  to  strengthen  and  discipline 
your  mental  muscles  as  to  serve  with 
the  greatest  effectiveness,  and  you  will 
acquire  knowledge,  not  because  knowl- 
edge is  power  by  which  you  may  lay 
others  under  tribute  to  you  and  your 
success,  but  because  by  it  you  may  bet- 
ter minister  to  your  day  and  generation. 

And  if  you  really  choose  the  service 
135 


THE    TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

of  others  rather  than  your  own  success 
or  self-realization  or  happiness,  you  will 
learn  at  length  with  glad  surprise  that, 
by  the  deep  and  wondrous  laws  of  the 
spiritual  life,  in  sacrificing  all  you  gained 
all. 

136 


X 

THE    THREE     GREAT     LAWS     APPLIED     TO 

PERSONAL      PROBLEMS OCCUPATION 

AMUSEMENTS EXPENDITURE 

"THE  world  owes  me  a  living,"  says 
some  young  man.  Why  does  it,  how 
did  it  contract  the  debt?  What  have 
you  done  to  lay  the  world  under  obliga- 
tions? 

This  is  the  motto  of  the  parasite 
which  sucks  its  living  out  of  some  other 
life.  By  a  law  of  nature  the  parasite, 
whether  human,  animal,  or  vegetable, 
becomes  a  degenerate.  This  is  nature's 
protest  against  every  life  which  refuses 
to  earn  its  own  living. 
137 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

There  are  social  parasites  of  several 
varieties.  One  is  the  polite  parasite, 
who  labors  under  the  strange  hallucina- 
tion that  he  is  an  ornament  and  bene- 
factor instead  of  a  burden  to  society. 
There  are  able-bodied  idlers  of  this  type 
who  never  have  any  more  serious  busi- 
ness in  life  than  to  make  their  toilet  or 
select  a  wardrobe,  whose  only  work  is 
preparation  to  play.  Such  people  spoil 
a  great  deal  of  good  food  which  might 
have  gone  to  making  honest  bone  and 
muscle. 

Good  old  Isaac  Watts  characterizes 
this  class  in  lines  which  do  not  find  their 
way  into  the  hymn-books : 

"  There  is  a  number  of  us  creep 
Into  the  world  to  eat  and  sleep ; 
And  know  no  reason  why  we're  born 
But  only  to  consume  the  corn, 
Devour  the  cattle,  flesh,  and  fish, 
And  leave  behind  an  empty  dish. 
138 


OCCUPATION 

And  if  our  tombstones,  when  we  ditfj 
Be  n't  taught  to  flatter  and  to  lie, 
There's  nothing  better  can  be  said 
Than  that  he's  eat  up  all  his  bread, 
Drunk  up  his  drink  and  gone  to  bed." 

True,  "  nothing  better  can  be  said," 
but  we  may  truly  say  much  worse.  They 
not  only  fail  to  serve ;  they  are  a  bur- 
den on  those  that  do  serve.  Men  and 
women  who  know  nothing  of  the  cost 
of  producing  are  apt  to  consume  with- 
out counting  the  cost.  Often  these 
idlers  consume  enough  on  their  worth- 
less selves  to  support  ten,  twenty,  a 
hundred  simple  lives  that  render  honest 
service  to  society.  Their  unearned 
luxury  represents  many  hollow-eyed 
lives  of  want,  many  shriveled  lives  of 
ignorance.  The  social  parasites  that 
suck  the  most  and  richest  blood  live  in 
palaces,  not  poorhouses. 

The  social  antipode  of  the  above  type 
139 


THE    TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

is  the  pariah,  or  outcast,  parasite,  viz. 
the  pauper,  the  criminal,  the  gambler, 
the  saloon-keeper,  the  pander  to  vice. 
All  these  get  a  living  out  of  society  for 
which  they  make  no  return  of  service. 
As  they,  each  one,  consume  what  they 
do  not  produce,  some  one  else  must  pro- 
duce what  he  does  not  consume.  It  is 
not  necessary  further  to  characterize  this 
type  ;  it  is  despised  of  course. 

There  is  one  other  type,  the  dis- 
guised parasite,  who  usually  escapes 
recognition.  He  may  be  one  of  the 
busiest  of  men  and  a  hard  worker ; 
and  this  constitutes  his  disguise,  for 
he  is  not  a  producer;  that  is,  he  ren- 
ders no  service.  It  is  his  business, 
by  means  not  illegal,  to  intercept 
and  appropriate  money  without  render- 
ing to  society  any  return  for  it.  The 

stock-gambler  is  a  good  illustration  of 
140 


OCCUPATION 

this  class.  He  may  be  active  as  a 
"  bull "  or  a  "  bear,"  but  he  produces 
nothing  by  his  activity.  He  very  likely 
gets  a  good  living,  but  he  does  not  earn 
it,  for  he  renders  no  service.  All  he 
consumes  is  produced  by  the  toilers  of 
society,  on  whom  he  is  a  burden.  He 
may  be  in  good  standing  in  society  and 
in  the  church,  but  he  is  no  less  a  para- 
site than  is  the  pauper  or  a  three-card- 
monte  man. 

For  an  able-bodied  person  to  take 
more  out  of  the  world  than  he  puts  into 
it  is  a  sin,  and  ought  to  be  a  disgrace. 
Enough  such  men  would  bankrupt  the 
world  and  extinguish  the  race. 

Obviously,  then,  every  young  man, 
rich  or  poor,  ought  to  have  a  worthy 
occupation.  If  he  has  inherited  a  for- 
tune, then,  as  Miss  Grace  Dodge  has 

said,  he  has  been  paid  in  advance  for 
141 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

the  service  he  owes  the  public.  Such  a 
debt,  which  cannot  be  collected  by  law, 
becomes  one  of  honor,  and  many  a  man 
has  not  honor  enough  to  pay  it. 

However,  we  ought  to  have  a  great 
deal  of  charity  for  those  who  are  so  un- 
fortunate as  to  be  born  rich.  Very 
often  the  rich  young  man  falls  into  the 
pit  of  ruin  and  the  poor  youth  escapes 
it,  only  because  the  one  possesses,  and 
the  other  lacks,  the  means  of  self-indul- 
gence. Very  often  the  poor,  rich  young 
man  develops  no  force  of  character  and 
accomplishes  nothing  in  life,  because  he 
lacks  the  spur  of  necessity,  which  forces 
the  rich,  poor  young  man  to  work  and, 
therefore,  to  grow. 

No  doubt  we  are  agreed  that  for  many 
reasons  every-young  man  should  have  a 
worthy  occupation.  But  how  shall  he 


142 


OCCUPATION 

choose  it  ?  This  is  a  serious  question, 
and  sometimes  a  serious  difficulty. 

Often  circumstances  choose  for  us, 
and  we  have  to  take  the  job  we  can  get. 
But  the  contingencies  of  every  life  offer 
more  or  less  opportunity  for  choice,  and 
that  choice  should  be  governed  by  the 
law  of  service.  The  question  is  not  how 
you  can  gain  the  best  or  easiest  living, 
or  win  the  greatest  honor,  but  how  you 
can  render  the  largest  and  noblest  ser- 
vice to  your  fellow  men. 

In  order  to  answer  that  question  in- 
telligently you  should  know  the  times 
in  which  you  live  and  their  needs,  you 
should  know  yourself  and  your  capabili- 
ties. It  is  not  always  the  ablest  man 
or  the  most  devoted  who  renders  the 
greatest  service,  but  he  who  best  meets 
the  greatest  need. 

Men  used  to  think  that  the  youth  who 
143 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

chose  an  unselfish  life  must  of  course 
enter  the  ministry ;  and  that  is  true 
enough,  if  we  remember  that  every  oc- 
cupation ought  to  be  made  a  ministry, 
entered  with  precisely  the  same  motives 
and  the  same  spirit  of  consecration  with 
which  one  should  enter  the  pulpit. 

Let  us  always  remember  that  the 
spiritual  is  infinitely  more  precious  than 
the  material,  but  let  us  never  forget  how 
profoundly  they  affect  each  other.  If 
we  appreciate  to  how  great  an  extent 
physical  conditions  determine  the  world's 
moral  progress,  we  shall  not  depreciate 
the  calling  of  those  who  deal  with  ma- 
terial things. 

George  Peabody's  natural  gifts  made 
him  a  financier  ;  and  by  making  money 
justly  and  using  it  wisely  he  doubtless 
did  more  for  the  moral  and  spiritual  up- 
lift of  humanity  than  he  could  have 
144 


OCCUPATION 

done  by  devoting  his  life  to  preaching 
the  gospel.  The  parents  of  William 
McKinley  hoped  that  he  would  enter 
the  ministry,  but  the  gifts  given  to  him 
enabled  him  to  accomplish  vastly  more 
for  his  country  and  for  the  world  by 
becoming  a  Christian  politician  and  a 
Christian  statesman  than  he  could  have 
done  by  becoming  a  Christian  minister. 

It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  God  in- 
tended us  to  render  that  service  for 
which  by  natural  endowment  he  has 
fitted  us ;  and  if  fitted  for  more  than 
one,  then  that  service  which  is  largest 
and  highest. 

But  if  circumstances  choose  for  us  a 
place  which  seems  to  us  smaller  than 
our  gifts  (and  circumstances  have  a  way 
of  doing  that),  the  surest  way  to  get  a 
larger  place  is  to  make  our  service  fill 
and  overflow  the  place  we  occupy. 
145 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

You  are  not  very  likely  to  find  your 
proper  place  when  you  start  in  life ;  but 
if  in  the  spirit  of  service  you  do  a  little 
more  than  your  full  duty,  your  proper 
place  will  be  very  likely  to  find  you. 

It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  a 
man's  vocation,  when  found,  is  not 
simply  or  chiefly  his  means  of  getting  a 
living,  but  his  principal  means  of  doing 
good  in  the  world.  However  useful 
one's  side  activities  may  be,  his  regular 
occupation  ought  to  be  vastly  more  so ; 
otherwise  service  is  with  him  only  in- 
cidental, not  habitual. 

If  our  occupation  is  what  it  ought  to 
be,  then  in  and  through  our  regular 
work  we  can  do  more  to  build  the  king- 
dom of  God  in  the  world  than  in  any 
other  way. 

That  kingdom  cannot  perfectly  come 

until  the  physical  conditions  of  life  are 
146 


OCCUPATION 

perfected.  Everything,  therefore,  that 
contributes  to  the  progress  of  true 
civilization  serves  to  hasten  the  coming 
of  the  kingdom — "  That  one  far-off 
divine  event,"  for  which  we  long  and 
labor. 

We  may  not  see  precisely  how  our 
work  is  a  means  to  that  end,  but  if  it  con- 
tributes to  human  well-being,  physical, 
mental,  moral  or  spiritual ;  if  it  is  a  work 
of  service,  and  if  we  put  our  conscience 
and  heart  into  it,  though  it  be  humble 
and  obscure,  God  will  give  it  a  place  in 
his  plan  and  put  it  to  the  best  possible 
use.  It  takes  material  vast  in  amount 
and  endless  in  variety  to  build  a  great 
city.  The  Holy  City,  the  "New  Jeru- 
salem," is  being  built  in  the  world  to- 
day ;  and  in  transforming  the  Revela- 
tor's  vision  of  future  glory  into  pres- 
ent and  tangible  reality,  the  Master 


THE  TIMES  AND  YOUNG    MEN 

Builder  can  make  use  of  materials  end- 
less in  variety  and  size  and  shape.  It 
will  be  fit  if  only  it  is  honest ;  and  there 
is  room  for  every  honest  workman,  not 
only  for  those  of  cunning  skill,  but  also, 
thank  God,  for  "  day-laborers,"  who, 
far  down  and  out  of  sight,  can  toil  at 
foundations  without  having  seen  the 
beauty  that  is  to  rise  above  them. 

I  remember  hearing  a  sermon  many 
years  ago  on  the  text,  "  And  through  a 
window  in  a  basket  was  I  let  down  by  the 
wall,  and  escaped "  (2  Cor.  xi.  33). 
Thus  Paul  eluded  his  enemies  who  were 
lying  in  wait  at  the  gates  of  Damascus 
to  kill  him.  The  preacher's  thought 
was  something  like  this :  How  much 
hung  on  that  rope  !  All  of  Paul's  life- 
work,  which  was  just  beginning  ;  all  of 
his  epistles,  not  one  of  which  had  then 

been  written  ;  all  of  his  influence  in  the 
148 


OCCUPATION 

world,  which  is  widening  and  deepening 
every  day.  Now  let  us  suppose  that 
rope  was  made  by  one  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians, and  that  he  put  his  conscience  into 
it,  and  that  as  he  worked  he  said  to  him- 
self :  "  I'm  making  this  rope  for  the 
kingdom.  I  don't  know  what  use  God 
will  make  of  it,  but  that's  none  of  my 
business  ;  it's  my  business  to  make  the 
best  piece  of  rope  I  know  how,  and  trust 
God  to  put  it  to  the  best  use."  That 
man  will  have  to  all  eternity  a  share  in 
Paul's  work,  and  in  its  boundless  re- 
sults. Thus  may  every  man  be  a  "  co- 
laborer  with  God  unto  the  kingdom." 
What  a  partnership ! 

There  are  many  to  whom  all  this  will 
not  appeal.  They  will  tell  you,  young 
men,  that  it  sounds  very  well,  that  it  is 
fine  sentiment,  but  that  it  is  not  prac- 
tical, is  not  business,  and  will  not  work 
149 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

when  you  get  out  among  men.  They 
will  tell  you  that  they  know  of  no  world 
where  there  is  room  for  the  practical 
operation  of  the  laws  of  service,  of  sac- 
rifice, and  of  love.  But  this  only  goes 
to  prove  the  truth  of  Jesus'  word : 
"  Except  a  man  be  born  again  he  cannot 
see  the  kingdom  of  God." 

But  we  must  turn  to  another  subject 
which  is  no  less  practical  than  that  of 
work,  viz., 

Amusements 

This  is  a  vexed  subject,  concerning 
which  there  is  an  honest  difference  of 
opinion  and  of  practice.  Moses  made 
no  catalogue  of  "  clean  "  and  "  unclean  " 
amusements ;  and  any  lists  which  are 
based  simply  on  training  or  prejudice 
or  custom  are  more  than  liable  to 
be  open  to  the  charge  of  inconsistency 

in  what  they  allow  and  disallow.     Here 
150 


AMUSEMENTS 

as  elsewhere  we  need  a  principle  to 
steer  us  safely  between  Scylla  and 
Charybdis. 

We  have  already  seen  that  recreation 
is  a  necessity.  The  law  of  self-sacrifice 
does  not  require  that  recreation  be  emp- 
tied of  all  enjoyment ;  that  would  rob 
it  of  much  of  its  recreating  power.  Piety 
does  not  look  unkindly  upon  mirth  or 
shake  its  head  at  gladness.  Austerity 
is  not  healthy  either  for  body  or  soul. 

Play  is  not  simply  an  innocent  thing ; 
it  is  a  divinely  ordered  thing.  It  is  the 
principal  lesson  in  God's  kindergarten  ; 
without  it  the  child  could  not  be  normally 
developed.  And  it  is  not  to  be  excluded 
from  the  higher  grades  of  the  school  of 
life,  for  without  it  one  can  hardly  pre- 
serve the  harmony  of  his  mental  powers. 
All  our  powers  of  body  and  mind  de- 
pend on  activity  for  their  development 


THE   TIMES   AND  YOUNG   MEN 

and  for  their  continued  efficiency.  But 
work  never  employs  all  our  faculties, 
and  sometimes  very  few  ;  while  it  spurs 
some  it  ties  up  others,  and  the  natural 
desire  to  play  is  simply  the  impulse  to 
let  them  loose.  Play  affords  a  change 
of  activities ;  it  permits  the  faculties  or 
muscles  which  have  been  at  work  to 
rest,  and  calls  into  activity  others  which 
have  been  idle;  thus  by  equalizing  and 
harmonizing  our  powers  it  re-creates  us. 
Evidently  exercise  is  not  necessarily 
play  and  cannot  take  its  place.  A  wood- 
cutter needs  play  as  much  as  an  account- 
ant who  foots  figures  all  day.  The  same 
activity  may  be  work  to  one  and  play 
to  another.  What  is  toil  to  the  woods- 
man was  recreation  to  Mr.  Gladstone. 
Play  demands  a  new  activity,  and  one 
which  is  agreeable.  It  is  close  to  nature. 

It   is   impulsive  and   spontaneous.      It 
152 


AMUSEMENTS 

takes  off  the  halter  and  sets  you  free  to 
frisk  all  over  the  field,  anywhere  you 
will,  provided  only  you  do  not  leap  the 
fence  of  law. 

The  house  where  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher 
lived  in  Walnut  Hills,  Cincinnati,  and 
which  was  afterwards  occupied  by  his 
son-in-law,  Professor  Stowe,  had  at  the 
back  a  double  veranda  with  pillars  run- 
ning from  the  ground  up  two  stories  to 
the  roof. 

One  day  when  the  house  had  become 
the  home  of  Professor  Stowe,  he  and 
Dr.  Beecher  were  standing  together  in 
the  back  yard. 

"  Professor  Stowe,"  said  Dr.  Beecher, 
pointing  to  the  veranda,  "  do  you  ever 
climb  those  pillars  ?  " 

"  Climb  them  ?  No ;  why  should  I  ?  " 

"Oh,"  replied  Dr.  Beecher,  "just  for 
fun  ;  I've  done  it  many  a  time." 
153 


THE   TIMES   AND  YOUNG   MEN 

Such  men  can  do  a  tremendous 
amount  of  work.  They  can  carry  great 
burdens  without  breaking,  because  they 
have  learned,  or  rather  have  never  for- 
gotten, how  to  play. 

We  Americans,  with  our  nervous 
temperament,  our  stimulating  climate, 
and  the  incentives  of  our  undeveloped 
resources,  have  set  the  pace  that  kills. 
If  we  would  relax  somewhat  the  inten- 
sity of  our  living  and  obey  more  often 
nature's  impulse  to  play,  there  would  be 
fewer  shattered  nervous  systems,  fewer 
madhouses,  fewer  deaths  from  obscure 
causes.  Of  all  nations  we  stand  most 
in  need  of  play,  and,  I  suppose,  we  play 
the  least. 

Rational  amusement,  then,  may  be 
called  a  duty,  but  irrational  amusement 
often  degenerates  into  vice.  Our  prin- 
ciple of  service  will  enable  us  to  dis- 
154 


AMUSEMENTS 

criminate.  All  legitimate  amusement 
increases  our  effectiveness,  our  power 
to  serve.  It  recuperates,  it  re-creates. 
Evidently  any  amusement  which  im- 
pairs health,  physical,  mental,  or  moral, 
is  illegitimate.  All  amusements  which 
are  followed  next  day  by  lassitude  or 
distaste  for  work  violate  the  law  of 
service.  It  is  well  to  beware  of  those 
that  fascinate  you ;  they  will  take  time 
and  thought  which  belong  elsewhere. 
In  such  cases  it  is  easier  to  abstain 
wholly  than  to  indulge  temperately. 

Rational  amusement  should  afford 
enjoyment  as  well  as  recreation  ;  and 
the  more  enjoyment  the  better,  pro- 
vided it  does  not  violate  the  law  of  ser- 
vice, which  forbids  all  such  enjoyment 
of  subordinate  ends  as  would  impair 
their  effectiveness  as  means  to  higher 
ends.  This  is  the  law  of  pleasure. 
155 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

Amusements,  of  course,  must  not  be 
too  expensive  in  time  or  money,  which 
leads  us  to  the  problem  of 

Expenditure 

Industrial  civilization  is  based  on  the 
exchange  of  services.  Justice  requires 
that  every  service  should  receive  its 
equivalent  in  service.  But  when  trade 
passes  beyond  the  early  and  simple 
stage  of  barter  there  comes  into  use  a 
common  representative  of  values  which 
we  call  money.  Money  is,  therefore,  a 
representative  or  measure  of  service. 
When  a  man  has  received  his  money 
for  his  day's  toil,  he  holds  in  his  hand 
something  which  he  can  exchange  for 
any  one  of  a  thousand  things,  and 
which,  therefore,  enables  him  to  select 
the  service  by  which  he  desires  to  be 

compensated  for  the  service  of  his  day's 
156 


EXPENDITURE 

toil,  which  toil  employed  his  skill  and 
consumed  his  time  and  strength. 

If,  then,  the  law  of  service  is  applica- 
ble to  the  use  of  time  and  skill  and  the 
various  powers  of  body  and  mind,  as 
we  have  seen,  it  is  thrice  applicable  to 
money,  which  is  the  representative  of  all 
these  and  of  the  ten  thousand  things 
which  are  their  outcome. 

Moreover,  as  this  law  of  service  is 
applicable  not  to  a  fraction  of  our  time, 
but  to  the  whole  of  it,  not  to  a  portion 
of  our  powers,  but  to  all  of  them,  so  it 
is  applicable  not  to  a  percentage  of  our 
money,  but  to  the  whole.  The  law  of 
service,  if  binding  at  all,  binds  us  to 
make  the  wisest  use  of  all  our  time,  of 
all  our  strength,  and  of  all  our  money 
or  property. 

A  misunderstanding  of  this  law  has 
led  not  a  few  conscientious  men  and 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

women  in  other  ages  to  dispose  of  all 
their  possessions  and  to  take  the  vow  of 
poverty.  But  the  application  of  this 
law  of  service  to  our  possessions  no 
more  implies  that  we  are  to  get  rid  of 
them  than  the  application  of  this  law  to 
life  implies  that  we  should  get  rid  of 
life.  Voluntary  poverty  shirks  duty 
precisely  as  suicide  shirks  duty.  The 
law  of  service  makes  us  all  stewards  of 
our  substance  as  we  are  of  our  time  and 
of  our  powers  of  body  and  mind,  all  of 
which  we  are  bound  to  administer  for 
the  good  of  humanity,  and  thus  to  the 
glory  of  God.  And  the  more  money, 
the  more  strength  and  time  and  talent 
we  have  the  better,  provided  only  we 
administer  all,  and  all  of  each,  so  as  to 
render  the  largest  and  best  service. 
Precisely  here  do  we  see  the  kernel 

of   truth   in    the   socialistic  contention 
158 


EXPENDITURE 

that  "  property  is  theft."  When  a  man  is 
a  despot  over  his  purse,  when  he  regards 
his  possessions  as  his  property,  not  to  be 
administered  for  the  good  of  humanity, 
but  spent  for  his  own  gratification,  then 
he  robs  both  God  and  man. 

The  guilt  of  this  kind  of  robbery 
varies  with  the  degree  of  light  against 
which  men  sin.  Many  good  men  have 
never  dreamed  that  more  than  one-tenth 
of  their  income  was  subject  to  the  law 
of  service.  They  talk  about  "the  Lord's 
tenth,"  and  think  they  can  do  what  they 
please  with  "  their  own  nine-tenths." 
Such  good  people  are  only  one-tenth  in- 
structed. They  think  they  are  obeying 
the  ancient  law  of  Tithes ;  but,  in  the 
first  place,  they  misinterpret  the  law, 
because  the  Mosaic  law  required  tithes 
in  recognition  of  the  fact  that  all  be- 
longed to  God  ;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
159 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

they  misapply  the  law,  because  it  was 
Jewish,  not  Christian,  and  is  not  adapted 
to  the  changed  conditions  of  modern 
times.1 

The  law  of  tithes  was  a  rule  of  tem- 
porary and  local  application.  The  law 
of  service  is  a  principle,  universal  and 
eternal  in  its  application. 

If  those  who  to-day  apply  the  law  of 
service  to  only  one-tenth  of  their  in- 
come are  uninstructed  and  narrow,  what 
shall  we  say  of  the  multitude,  even  of 
professing  Christians,  who  do  vastly 
less  ?  How  many  professed  followers 
of  Jesus  Christ  have  gained  an  intelli- 
gent conception  of  this  fundamental 
law  of  Him  whom  they  call  Master? 

In  the  application  of  the  law  of  ser- 
vice to  expenditure  there  are  two  dan- 

1  For  an  extended  discussion  of  this  whole   subject  see 
"  Our  Country,"  pp.  228-267. 

160 


EXPENDITURE 

gers  to  be  avoided  :  on  the  one  hand 
the  danger  of  self-deception,  resulting 
in  self-indulgence,  and  on  the  other 
the  danger  of  self-depletion,  resulting 
in  impoverishing  life  and  impairing  use- 
fulness. Nearly  all  of  us  need  to  guard 
against  the  former  ;  only  the  most  gen- 
erous souls  are  liable  to  the  latter. 

Such  expenditures  for  food  and  cloth- 
ing, for  books  and  education,  for  rest 
and  recreation,  for  aids  and  appliances, 
as  are  necessary  to  our  greatest  efficiency 
are  in  perfect  accord  with  the  law  of  ser- 
vice and  are  clearly  commendable  ;  while 
all  expenditure  in  self-gratification  which 
does  not  serve  to  enlarge  life  and  in- 
crease efficiency  is  clearly  in  violation  of 
the  law. 

The  application  of  the  principle  of 
service  to  the  problem  of  expenditure 

will  not  relieve  us  of  the  necessity  of 
161 


THE   TIMES   AND  YOUNG  MEN 

exercising  either  judgment  or  self- 
denial,  but  will  rather  demand  both,  if 
we  are  to  escape  both  self-indulgence 
and  fanaticism. 

He  who  intelligently  and  conscien- 
tiously applies  this  law  will  one  day 
find  that  all  he  has  expended  on  himself 
he  has  really  spent  for  others,  and  all 
that  he  has  given  for  others  he  has  made 

forever  his  own. 

162 


XI 

THE     THREE     GREAT     LAWS    APPLIED    TO 
PERSONAL  PROBLEMS RELIGION 

TRUTH  like  sunshine  unites  light-rays 
and  heat-rays.  The  former  appeal  to 
the  mind,  the  latter  to  the  heart.  It  is 
the  former  which  illuminate ;  it  is  the 
latter  which  vitalize.  Many  a  man  sees 
the  truth  who  never  feels  it.  To  him  it 
is  knowledge,  but  not  power.  His  mind 
has  been  enlarged,  but  not  his  heart.  He 
knows  the  path  of  duty,  but  does  not 
follow  it.  "  I  will  run  the  way  of  thy 
commandments  when  thou  shalt  enlarge 
my  heart"1 

That   which  is  most  fundamental  in 

1  Ps.  cxix.  32. 
163 


THE   TIMES    AND   YOUNG   MEN 

religion  is  not  belief,  but  experience. 
Let  me  not  be  supposed  to  depreciate 
the  importance  of  correct  belief.  As 
long  as  there  is  an  eternal  difference  be- 
tween truth  and  falsehood,  it  will  make 
a  difference  whether  a  man  believes  the 
truth  or  a  lie.  As  a  man  "thinketh  in 
his  heart,  so  is  he."  "  Sow  a  thought 
and  you  reap  an  act ;  sow  an  act  and  you 
reap  a  habit ;  sow  a  habit  and  you  reap  a 
character ;  sow  a  character  and  you  reap 
a  destiny."  Christ  would  not  have  come 
into  the  world  that  he  might  bear  wit- 
ness unto  the  truth,  if  it  had  not  been 
profoundly  important  to  hold  the  truth. 
I  could  wish  every  one  held  a  true  the- 
ology, but  a  correct  theology  is  by  no 
means  necessary  to  beginning  the  Chris- 
tian life.  How  much  theology  had  the 
apostles  when  they  became  Christians, 

that  is,  followers  of  Jesus  ?     Not  one  of 
164 


RELIGION 

them  could  have  subscribed  to  a  half  of 
the  so-called  Apostles'  Creed — the  sim- 
plest and  broadest  of  all  the  historic  con- 
fessions of  faith.  Not  one  of  them  had 
theology  enough  to  pass  a  modern  ex- 
amination for  license  to  preach. 

They  evidently  became  followers  by 
following,  by  accepting  Jesus  as  Lord 
and  Master,  by  becoming  imbued  with 
his  spirit,  which  was  the  spirit  of  love, 
of  service,  and  of  sacrifice.  The  rab- 
bis believed  vastly  more  theology  than 
the  apostles,  and  much  of  it  was  true, 
but  that  did  not  make  them  Chris- 
tians, because  it  did  not  make  them 
followers  of  Christ. 

There  are  many  young  men  who  are 
not  Christians,  who  imagine  that  their 
difficulties  are  theological ;  their  creed 
is  made  up  largely  of  interrogation- 
points.  And  yet  I  think  it  safe  to  say 
165 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

that  the  average  young  man  in  the 
United  States  and  England  to-day  be- 
lieves more  theology  than  the  apostles 
did  when  they  became  Christians. 
Whatever  may  be  your  doubts,  and 
however  short  your  creed,  if  you  believe 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  worthy  to  be  im- 
plicitly followed,  you  believe  enough  to 
become  his  follower. 

Of  course  it  is  impossible  for  you  to 
accept  Christ  as  Lord  and  Master  with- 
out accepting  the  three  fundamental 
laws  which  he  laid  on  all  his  followers. 
I  do  not  mean  simply  accepting  them 
as  true,  but  adopting  them  as  the  laws 
of  your  life.  You  will  solve  the  per- 
sonal problem  of  religion  when  you 
gain  an  experimental  knowledge  of 
these  laws. 

On    the  surface,  where  they  may  be 

apprehended  by  the  intellect,  these  laws 
166 


RELIGION 

are  easily  distinguished  as  three,  but 
down  in  the  heart  they  are  one. 

There  is  a  strong  disposition  among 
men  to  accept  one  of  these  laws  with- 
out the  other  two,  which  produces  three 
different  types  of  religion,  all  of  them 
more  or  less  superficial,  no  one  of 
them  reaching  down  to  the  heart,  and 
all  of  them  perversions  of  the  relig- 
ion of  Jesus.  Let  us  glance  at  all 
three. 

Loveless  sacrifice,  which  renders  no 
service  and  aims  at  none,  has  caused  a 
vast  amount  of  gratuitous  and  wasted 
suffering  in  the  world.  Asceticism  has 
been  common  both  among  Christian 
and  heathen  peoples.  It  does  not  spring 
from  a  love  to  others,  which  leads  to 
sacrifice  in  their  behalf,  but  from  the  be- 
lief that  sacrifice,  as  such,  is  pleasing  to 

God.     The  law  of  sacrifice  is  made  su- 
167 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

preme,  and  religious  devotees  practice 
self-sacrifice  simply  for  the  sake  of  sac- 
rifice. 

History  furnishes  no  hetter  illustra- 
tion of  such  sacrifice  than  that  afforded 
by  the  "  Pillar  Saints,"  as  they  are  called, 
who  flourished  in  Syria  for  some  seven 
hundred  years,  beginning  with  "  Simon 
the  Stylite  "  in  the  fifth  century.  As  a 
monk  he  had  lived  for  nine  years  in  a 
narrow  cell  without  ever  leaving  it.  In 
order  to  separate  himself  more  com- 
pletely from  earth  and  his  fellow  men, 
he  built  a  pillar  about  sixty  feet  high, 
on  the  top  of  which,  only  a  yard  in  diam- 
eter, he  lived.  Thus  engaged  in  prayer 
and  genuflections,  exposed  to  the 
weather,  loaded  with  an  iron  chain,  suf- 
fering from  long  fasts  and  a  loathsome 
ulcer,  in  repulsive  filth,  he  dragged  out 

thirty -seven  years;  and  by  these  idiotic 
168 


RELIGION 

performances  in  the  name  of  religion 
he  won  the  title  of  "saint." 

Such  a  life  is  inspired  not  by  love  but 
by  fanaticism,  and  is  worse  than  useless, 
because  it  perverts  the  popular  concep- 
tion of  God  and  of  religion.  It  assumes 
that  God  loves  to  witness  suffering. 
What  a  hideous  conception  of  the 
Heavenly  Father ! 

If  you  should  go  to  your  father  with 
the  bleeding  stump  of  your  arm,  and  tell 
him  that  you  had  blown  it  off  in  order 
to  please  him,  he  would  be  horrified. 
But  if  for  the  honor  of  your  country  or 
for  the  sake  of  liberating  enslaved  Cuba 
you  had  suffered  the  loss  of  your  good 
right  arm,  he  would  admire  and  love 
you  for  it.  But  in  that  case  his  satis- 
faction would  spring,  not  from  your  suf- 
fering, which  would  cost  him  only  pain, 
169 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

but  from  your  willingness  to  suffer  for 
the  sake  of  others. 

Sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  sacrifice  is 
suffering  for  the  sake  of  suffering ;  and 
to  imagine  that  God  delights  in  suffer- 
ing for  its  own  sake  is  to  make  of  him 
a  devil. 

Sacrifice  should  always  serve,  and 
when  it  springs  from  love  it  is  always 
intended  to  serve.  Such  sacrifice  is  al- 
ways beautiful.  But  sacrifice  separated 
from  love  and  service  caricatures  both 
God  and  religion. 

Moreover,  such  sacrifice  is  not  gen- 
uine, though  the  suffering  may  be  very 
real  and  very  great.  Unless  sacrifice  is 
made  for  the  love  of  another  it  is  made 
for  the  love  of  self.  Men  have  sacrificed 
everything  dear  in  this  life  in  order  to  win 
the  divine  favor  and  gain  the  life  to  come. 

But  that  is  not  ^^"-sacrifice ;  it  is  sacri- 
170 


RELIGION 

ficing  present  good  for  future  good  and 
for  the  sake  of  self .  This  is  investment, 
not  sacrifice.  It  is  commercialism,  not 
Christianity.  "  Other-worldliness "  is 
no  more  unselfish  than  this-world- 
liness,  it  is  only  longer-headed.  Jesus 
does  not  say  :  He  that  loseth  his  life  for 
the  sake  of  finding  it,  but  "He  that 
loseth  his  life  for  my  sake,  shall  find  it." 

All  self-torture  for  the  sake  of  mov- 
ing the  divine  compassion  is  like  the 
mutilation  and  blindness  inflicted  on 
themselves  by  Italian  and  Chinese  beg- 
gars with  a  view  to  exciting  the  pity 
of  the  beholder.  It  is  self-sacrifice  in  a 
sense,  but  it  is  wholly  selfish.  Self-cru- 
cifixion which  does  not  obey  the  law  of 
love  and  the  law  of  service  does  not 
really  obey  the  law  of  sacrifice,  but  only 
caricatures  it. 

Another  type  of  religion,  much  less 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

gloomy  and  repulsive  than  the  forego- 
ing, but  no  more  Christian,  makes  the 
law  of  love  everything  and  ignores  the 
laws  of  sacrifice  and  service,  especially 
the  latter.  Mysticism,  like  asceticism, 
has  appeared  in  many  different  ages  and 
among  peoples  of  different  religions. 
The  aim  of  the  mystic  is  to  lose  himself 
in  the  contemplation  and  enjoyment  of 
God.  By  abstracting  his  mind  from 
earthly  things  he  rises  to  the  vision  of 
the  divine  and  sometimes  to  ecstasy. 

Such  pious  rapture  does  not  imply 
Christian  character  or  Christian  living. 
Mere  feeling,  though  it  rise  to  ecstasy, 
if  divorced  from  good  willing  and  good 
doing,  is  not  Christian  love.  A  love  of 
God  which  is  satisfied  and  lost  in  its 
own  enjoyment>  and  does  not  long  un- 
speakably and  labor  unceasingly  that 

others  also  may  know  the  same  blessed- 
172 


RELIGION 

ness,  is  a  morbid,  selfish  love,  if  it  may 
be  called  love  at  all.  Such  love  does 
nothing  to  hasten  the  coming  of  the 
kingdom  in  the  world.  It  is  not  the 
kind  of  love  which  Christ  commanded 
when  he  bade  us  love  our  neighbor  as 
ourselves.  The  love  which  Christ  in- 
culcated and  exemplified  included  good 
will — a  will  good  enough  to  express 
itself  in  service  and  sacrifice.  A  love 
that  does  not  long  to  serve  its  object 
and,  if  need  be,  suffer  for  it,  is  much  like 
heat  which  does  not  warm  and  light 
which  does  not  shine. 

The  third  type  of  religion  referred  to 
knows  little  of  love  and  sacrifice  and 
apparently  makes  much  of  service.  As 
the  life  and  essence  of  religion  are  lost, 
its  forms  and  ceremonies  become  more 
exact  and  elaborate.  Ritualism,  like 
mysticism  and  asceticism,  has  not  been 
173 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

peculiar  to  any  age  or  people.  It  char- 
acterizes all  pagan  religions,  and  there 
is  an  almost  constant  tendency  to  it  in 
the  Christian  church.  That  tendency  is 
peculiarly  strong  at  the  present  time. 

Men  think  they  can  lay  God  under 
obligations  by  service,  as  they  do  their 
fellow  men.  We  forget  that  all  pos- 
sible assets  of  service,  multiplied  a  thou- 
sandfold, could  not  cancel  our  obliga- 
tions to  God.  Though  we  serve  him  to 
all  eternity,  we  cannot  discharge  our 
debts  so  as  to  stand  on  an  even  footing 
with  him,  as  we  do  with  our  fellows, 
thus  permitting  us  to  expect  a  wage  for 
our  service. 

Do  not  imagine,  young  men,  that  by 
service,  however  long  or  faithful,  you  can 
purchase  salvation  or  the  divine  favor. 
A  purchase  implies  a  price,  a  valuation, 
and  the  most  precious  things  are  beyond 
174 


RELIGION 

all   price.     They  are   given   away,   not 
sold. 

"  Earth  gets  its  price  for  what  Earth  gives  us  ; 
The  beggar  is  taxed  for  a  corner  to  die  in, 
The  priest  hath  his  fee  who  comes  and  shrives  us, 
We  bargain  for  the  graves  we  lie  in  ; 
At  the  devil's  booth  are  all  things  sold, 
Each  ounce  of  dross  costs  its  ounce  of  gold  ; 
For  a  cap  and  bells  our  lives  we  pay, 
Bubbles  we  buy  with  a  whole  soul's  tasking  : 
'Tis  heaven  alone  that  is  given  away, 
'Tis  only  God  may  be  had  for  the  asking."  l 

If  you  could  purchase  salvation,  that 
would  be  putting  a  price  on  the  life  and 
death  of  Christ,  and  on  the  infinite  love 
of  God.  That  would  be  reducing  Chris- 
tianity to  mere  commercialism.  God 
did  not  "  so  love  "  the  world  because  the 
world  had  rendered  such  perfect  service. 
He  loves  us,  not  because  of  what  we  have 
done  or  because  of  what  we  are,  but  be- 
cause of  what  he  is.  He  loves  because 

1  Lowell's  "  The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfel." 
175 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

he  is  love.  Such  love  asks  for  love  in 
return,  and  can  be  satisfied  with  nothing 
else.  Love  hungers  for  love.  It  gives 
itself  and  asks  the  gift  of  self.  Perfect 
love  is  a  perfect  exchange.  We  can  be 
filled  with  God  only  when  we  have  been 
emptied  of  self.  He  demands  that  we 
give  ourselves  to  him  utterly  in  order 
that  we  may  receive  him  utterly,  and  so 
be  utterly  blest.  Hence  it  is  that  love 
can  accept  no  substitute  for  love  ;  with- 
out it  service  is  an  empty  form,  and  sac- 
rifice is  an  offense. 

God  loves  us,  young  men,  whether  we 
serve  him  or  not.  And  when  the  knowl- 
edge of  such  love  reaches  not  our  mind 
but  our  heart,  we  begin  to  love  him, 
and  then  our  service  is  prompted  not 
by  the  hope  of  reward  but  by  grati- 
tude ;  and  such  service  is  glad  and 

free.       It   is   like    the   love    which   in- 
176 


RELIGION 

spires  it,  "without  money  and  without 
price." 

As  the  sacrifice  of  asceticism,  when 
separated  from  love  and  service,  is  not 
Christian  sacrifice,  and  as  the  love  of 
mysticism,  when  separated  from  service 
and  sacrifice,  is  not  Christian  love,  so  the 
service  of  ritualism,  when  separated  from 
love  and  sacrifice,  is  not  Christian  service. 

Is  not  much  of  the  so-called  service 
of  the  church  to-day  empty  form  and 
ceremony  ?  Has  not  the  church  largely 
lost  the  true  conception  of  service  ?  Her 
"  services  "  are  "  held  "  instead  of  being 
rendered ;  as  if  listening  to  sermons  and 
prayers  and  music  were  serving  God. 
That  is  worship,  if  done  in  the  right 
spirit,  but  it  is  not  service.  The  Master 
tells  us  how  to  serve  him.  "  If  any  man 
serve  me,  let  him  follow  me."1  Jesus 

1  John  xii.  26. 
177 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

went  about  doing  good ;  we  cannot 
"  follow "  him  unless  we  do  the  same. 
The  only  way  to  render  a  service  to  Christ, 
that  I  know  of,  is  to  render  it  to  our  fel- 
low men,  for  it  is  only  in  their  persons 
that  Christ  is  in  need.  "  Inasmuch  as  ye 
have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these 
my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me."1 

There  are  many  men  and  women  to- 
day whose  lives  are  filled  with  the  ser- 
vice and  sacrifice  of  Christ  because  their 
hearts  are  filled  with  his  love;  but  is 
this  true  of  the  average  "  Christian,"  the 
typical  church-member  ? 

Now  it  is  the  typical  church-member 
from  whom  the  world  gets  its  conception 
of  the  church.  If,  then,  in  the  life  of 
the  typical  church-member  there  is  little 
sacrifice  and  little  evidence  of  love,  and 
if  he  thinks  the  service  of  God  consists 

1  Matt.  xxv.  40. 
I78 


RELIGION 

in  going  to  church  instead  of  going 
about  doing  good,  is  it  strange  that  the 
church  has  little  power  to-day  over  the 
world  ? 

Love,  expressing  itself  in  an  enthu- 
siasm of  service  and  sacrifice,  is  always 
powerful  to  convince  and  to  attract. 
May  we  not  account  for  the  weakness 
of  the  church  to-day  by  the  absence  of 
such  love  ? 

There  is  not  enough  of  effort,  of 
struggle,  in  the  typical  church  life  of  to- 
day to  win  young  men  to  the  church. 
A  flowery  bed  of  ease  does  not  appeal  to 
a  fellow  who  has  any  manhood  in  him. 
The  prevailing  type  of  religion  is  too 
utterly  comfortable  to  attract  young  men 
who  love  the  heroic.  Eliminate  heroism 
from  religion  and  it  becomes  weak, 
effeminate.  Is  there  no  significance  in 

the  fact  that  two-thirds  of  the  church- 
179 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

membership  to-day  are  females,  that  for 
every  young  man  in  the  church  there  are 
two  young  women  ?  Why  is  it  that  the 
angels  of  modern  art  are  almost  invari- 
ably feminine,  while  those  of  the  Scrip, 
tures  are  masculine  ?  Is  it  because 
religion  has  come  to  suggest  more  ol 
beauty  than  of  strength,  more  of  gentle- 
ness than  of  heroism  ? 

There  is  nothing  effeminate  in  the 
modern  missionary  spirit.  Witness  the- 
Christian  heroism  which  in  recent  years 
has  braved  martyrdom  in  Turkey  and 
suffered  martyrdom  in  China.  Then 
look  at  the  uprising  of  the  student  vol 
unteers,  which  is  unequaled  in  all  history 
This  splendid  exhibition  of  Christian 
zeal  came  in  response  to  a  call  for  service 
in  the  dark  places  of  the  earth,  a  call  to 
sacrifice,  a  call  to  "  endure  hardness." 

When    service   comes   to    mean    not 
1 80 


RELIGION 

worship  but  human  helpfulness — helping 
humanity  to  be  less  dirty,  less  drunken, 
less  ignorant,  less  animal,  less  diseased 
and  deformed,  less  sorrowful,  less  selfish 
and  sinful — then,  I  believe,  there  will  be 
more  young  men  to  fill  empty  pews  with 
devout  worshipers.  When  the  Sabbath 
bell  ceases  to  call  men  to  "  divine  ser- 
vice," more  will  answer  its  summons  to 
divine  worship,  and  more  will  recognize 
in  every  human  need  a  call  to  service 
which  is  indeed  divine. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  the  life  of 
the  typical  church-member  to-day  lacks 
contagious  zeal.  It  kindles  no  enthu- 
siasm for  humanity,  for  it  manifests 
none.  It  makes  no  appeal  to  heroism. 
But  it  is  not  the  typical  church-member 
whom  you  are  called  to  follow.  Your 
leader  is  the  supreme  hero  of  the  ages, 

and  he  calls  every  follower  to  heroism, 
181 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

for  he  calls  every  follower  to  a  life  of 
self-giving  for  others.  I  am  much  more 
anxious  that  you  become  a  follower  of 
him  than  that  you  become  a  church- 
member.  You  are  not  fit  to  become  the 
latter  until  after  you  have  become  the 
former ;  and  having  become  the  former, 
there  are  many  reasons  why  you  should 
become  the  latter.  If  the  church  is 
not  what  it  ought  to  be,  which  is  true 
enough,  then,  having  become  a  genuine 
Christian  yourself,  enter  the  church  and 
help  to  make  it  more  genuinely  Chris- 
tian. The  practical  question  for  you  is 
whether  you  are  man  enough  to  become 
a  genuine  Christian — man  enough  to 
give  up  the  meanness  of  selfishness  for 
the  general  good. 

There  is  as  real  an  opportunity  for 
sacrifice    in    the    United    States   as   in 

Turkey  or  China.     Right  here,  in  the 
182 


RELIGION 

midst  of  ease  and  luxury  and  selfishness ; 
here,  in  the  midst  of  municipal  corrup- 
tion, and  industrial  hate,  and  social  dis- 
content, there  is  a  call  for  the  "  strenuous 
life,"  a  call  for  the  "living  sacrifice  "  which 
"  dies  daily  "  ;  and  the  living  sacrifice 
may  be  even  more  heroic  than  the  dying 
sacrifice. 

We  have  seen  that  love,  service,  and 
sacrifice  are,  each  one,  necessary  to  the 
pure,  simple,  and  practical  religion  of 
Jesus.  He,  whom  you  are  called  to  fol- 
low as  Lord  and  Master,  lived  a  life  of 
perfect  love,  perfect  service,  and  perfect 
sacrifice,  all  perfectly  united  ;  and,  in  so 
doing,  he  lived  a  perfect  life,  thus 
furnishing  a  complete  solution  of  the 
problems  of  life,  both  personal  and 
social. 

We  have  seen  how  a  wrong  concep- 
tion of  the  religion  of  Jesus  makes  the 
183 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

life  of  the  ascetic  shriveled,  solitary, 
wretched,  and  wasted ;  how  it  makes 
the  life  of  the  mystic  morbid,  selfish, 
separated,  and  useless ;  how  it  empties 
the  ritualist's  life  of  reality,  making  it 
hollow,  powerless,  and  puerile. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  faithful  and  in- 
telligent application  to  life  of  these  three 
laws  of  Jesus  realizes  the  highest  pos- 
sibilities of  that  life.  It  develops  body 
and  mind,  it  masters  the  appetites  of  the 
one  and  the  powers  of  the  other,  ded- 
icating both  to  the  highest  usefulness. 
It  inspires  the  noblest  possible  object  in 
life,  viz.,  the  hastening  of  the  coming  of 
God's  kingdom  in  the  earth,  which 
means  the  greatest  possible  good  to  all 
mankind.  Men  grow  to  the  measure  of 
their  purposes.  If  their  purposes  are 
centered  in  self,  they  take  a  small  view 

of  life  and  their  horizon  contracts  as  they 
184 


RELIGION 

grow  older.  But  if  their  object  in  life 
is  the  kingdom  and  its  extension  in  the 
world,  there  is  an  ever-widening  interest 
in  civilization,  an  ever-growing  sym- 
pathy with  all  that  works  for  human 
betterment  ;  thus  life  is  broadened  and 
enriched,  until  everything  that  concerns 
the  welfare  of  mankind  concerns  these 
lovers  of  their  kind.  Giving  their  life 
to  their  fellow  men,  it  comes  back  to 
them  enlarged  ;  fixing  their  eyes  on  the 
highest  good  of  others,  they  achieve 
their  own  ;  forgetting  to  seek  happiness, 
they  discover  that  it  is  found  of  them 
that  sought  it  not.  Their  lives  are  re- 
deemed from  the  tedium  of  common- 
place, because  the  humdrum,  daily  toil 
has  been  correlated  with  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  its  coming  in  the  world,  and 
homely  duties  are  glorified  by  a  great 

motive,  while    the    meanest    tasks   are 
185 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

dignified  by  the  knowledge  that  they 
contribute  something  to  the  great  con- 
summation for  which  the  noblest  of 
earth  have  struggled,  for  which  God 
himself  works,  and  for  which  Christ  lived 
and  died. 

If  we  now  gather  up  the  threads  of 
our  discussion,  we  see  that  the  three 
fundamental  laws  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  laid  down  by  Jesus,  are  also  funda- 
mental laws  of  nature,  which,  beginning 
with  the  atom,  may  be  traced  with  in- 
creasing distinctness  through  the  ascend- 
ing scale  of  being  up  to  man,  in  whom 
is  found  the  possibility  of  their  noblest 
fulfillment  ;  we  see  that  when  accepted 
by  him  they  solve  the  personal  problems 
of  life,  and  that  when  applied  to  human 
relationships  they  solve  the  social  prob- 
lem. In  a  word,  obedience  to  these 

three    laws    brings  man   into   harmony 
1 86 


RELIGION 

with  himself,  with  his   fellow,  with  his 
God,  and  with  the  universe. 

Clearly,  then,  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  its  realization  in  the  world,  through 
obedience  to  these  three  fundamental 
laws,  furnishes  us  with  the  true  philos- 
ophy of  life. 

The  great  undercurrent  of  civilization, 
indications  of  which  were  pointed  out  in 
the  earlier  chapters,  is  a  part  of  the 
progress  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  By 
surrendering  yourselves  to  these  three 
fundamental  laws  of  the  kingdom  you 
will  reach  down  to  this  deep  and  resist- 
less current  of  progress,  which  will  bear 
you  on,  untroubled  by  conflicting  sur- 
face currents  and  by  shifting  winds  of 
doctrine. 

Here,  then,  is  the  practical  question  : 
Will  you  surrender  your  life  to  the  laws 
of  love,  service,  and  sacrifice  ? 
187 


THE   TIMES    AND   YOUNG   MEN 

You  ask,  How  is  it  possible  to  crucify 
self,  without  which  service  and  sacrifice 
will  be  a  lifelong  crucifixion  ?  How  is 
it  possible  to  gain  this  disinterested  love 
which  transforms  service  into  a  delight, 
and  sacrifice  into  privilege? 

You  tell  me  you  find  it  impossible  to 
exercise  such  love.  Yes,  it  is  impossible 
to  the  old  life ;  hence  the  insistence  of 
Jesus  that  the  old  life  die,  and  that  you 
enter  on  a  new  life  by  being  born  into 
the  kingdom  of  God. 

We  have  seen  that  inorganic  matter 
rises  into  the  vegetable  kingdom  and 
becomes  subject  to  its  higher  laws.  But 
dead  matter  thus  begins  to  live  only 
when  life  reaches  down  to  it  from  above  ; 
and  living  roots  thus  lay  hold  of  dead 
matter  and  vitalize  it  only  when  it  has 
been  so  prepared  that  it  can  yield  itsell 

to  the  power  of  life. 
1 88 


RELIGION 

Again,  we  have  seen  that  vegetable 
life  may  rise  into  the  animal  kingdom 
and  become  subject  to  its  higher  laws, 
but  only  when  life  reaches  down  to  it 
from  above ;  and  preparation  for  this 
higher  life  is  the  surrender  of  the  lower 
life. 

Again,  it  is  possible  for  man  to  rise 
into  a  higher  kingdom,  even  the  king- 
dom of  God,  and  to  become  subject  to 
its  higher  laws,  but  only  when  that  life 
reaches  down  to  him  from  above.  "  Ex- 
cept a  man  be  born  from  above,  he  can- 
not see  the  kingdom  of  God."  Here 
again  there  is  promotion  by  self-surren- 
der: only  as  man  dies  to  the  old  life 
can  he  be  born  into  the  new.  This  new 
life  is  spiritual  life,  eternal  life,  the  di- 
vine life,  which  is  divine  love,  disinter- 
ested love.  This  is  the  love  which  trans- 
forms service  into  a  delight  and  sacri- 
189 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

fice  into  privilege.  Thus  when  a  man 
has  been  born  into  the  kingdom  of  God 
he  joyfully  and  naturally  yields  himself 
to  its  laws,  which  before  he  had  found 
it  impossible  to  obey. 

The  divine  love  is  ever  reaching  down 
to  find  human  hearts  prepared  for  this 
new  life  ;  and  the  only  preparation  nec- 
essary, the  only  preparation  possible,  is 
self-surrender. 

When  Jonathan  Edwards  was  a  stu- 
dent in  college  he  wrote  the  following 
words  in  his  diary  :  "  I  have  this  day 
solemnly  renewed  my  covenant  and  ded- 
ication. I  have  been  before  God  and 
given  myself  and  all  that  I  am  and  have 
to  God,  so  that  I  am  not  in  any  respect 
my  own.  I  can  challenge  no  right  to 
myself,  to  this  understanding,  this  will, 
these  affections.  I  have  no  right  to  this 

body,  to  this  tongue,  these  hands,  these 
190 


RELIGION 

feet,  no  right  to  these  senses.  I  have 
given  every  power  to  God,  so  that  for 
the  future  I  will  challenge  no  right  to 
myself." 

Make  such  a  consecration  of  yourself 
to  God  for  the  service  of  man,  and  you 
will  surely  enter  into  the  new  life. 

The  life  of  self-abnegation  does  not  at- 
tract you.  A  cathedral  window,  seen  from 
without,  is  dull  and  meaningless.  But 
enter,  and  the  light  of  heaven,  stream- 
ing through  it,  glorifies  it  with  every 
beauty  of  form  and  color.  Consecration 
to  God  for  service  may  seem  dull  enough 
when  seen  from  without ;  but  enter  into 
that  experience,  and  the  light  of  the  di- 
vine love,  streaming  through  it,  shall  glo- 
rify your  life  with  a  beauty  and  blessed- 
ness which  are  heaven's  own. 
191 


XII 

THE     INSPIRATION    OF    THE   TWENTIETH- 
CENTURY    OUTLOOK 

THE  beginning  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury would  seem  to  be  a  fitting  time  to 
cast  its  horoscope. 

A  hundred  years  ago,  great  hopes 
were  based  on  the  new  experiment  of 
popular  government  and  popular  educa- 
tion, free  speech  and  a  free  press — 
hopes  which  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century  saw  realized  only  in  part.  In- 
deed, there  has  been  for  some  years, 
especially  in  Europe,  a  distinct  feeling 
of  disappointment,  if  not  of  discourage- 
ment, that  the  progress  of  democracy 
has  not  contributed  more  to  the  progress 

of  humanity. 

192 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

Faith  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
surely  coming  in  the  world  is  sufficient 
to  sustain  zeal  even  in  times  of  uncer- 
tainty and  perplexity.  But  I  believe 
that  the  forward  look  of  the  new  con- 
ditions which  have  been  pointed  out  is 
calculated  to  inflame  our  zeal  until  it 
bursts  into  a  glowing  enthusiasm  for 
human  betterment. 

We  have  seen  in  the  preceding  discus- 
sion that  the  great  changes  in  the 
material  civilization,  during  the  past 
century,  were  produced  primarily  by  the 
industrial  revolution.  We  have  seen 
also  that  the  profound  changes  in  the 
world  of  ideas  have  sprung  chiefly  from 
the  development  of  the  scientific  method. 
We  have  seen  further  that  from  these 
changes  in  both  spheres  have  come  a 
new  social  ideal  and  a  new  interpreta- 
tion of  Christianity. 
193 


THE    TIMES  AND  YOUNG   MEN 

Let  us  now  consider  briefly  what  in- 
fluences may  be  expected  to  flow  from 
these  great  facts  and  forces  during  the 
twentieth  century. 

/.    The  Influence  of  the  Industrial 
Revolution. 

Students  of  civilization  have  been  in- 
clined to  attribute  its  progress  chiefly  or 
wholly  to  some  one  cause.  Thus  Comte 
regarded  religion  as  the  controlling 
factor.  Guizot  accounted  for  modern 
civilization  by  the  action  and  reaction 
of  European  institutions.  Buckle  made 
the  progress  of  civilization  altogether 
dependent  on  the  progress  of  the  physi- 
cal sciences ;  while  Hegel  attributed  it 
to  the  evolution  of  thought.  Spencer, 
on  the  other  hand,  accounts  for  it  by  the 

application  of  the  law  of  evolution  to  the 
194 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

physical  universe.  And  Carlyle  would 
explain  the  uplifting  of  the  race  by  great 
ideas  and  truths  embodied  in  great  men, 
whose  lives  he  deemed  "  a  condensed 
summary  of  universal  history." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  all  of  these  causes 
have  been  active,  varying  in  their  impor- 
tance in  different  ages  and  among  dif- 
ferent peoples.  But  there  is  one  cause, 
the  importance  of  which  has  been  largely 
overlooked,  which  is  always  operative 
and  influential  in  every  age  and  among 
all  peoples,  and  that  is  the  necessity  of 
something  to  eat. 

We  have  seen  that,  more  than  any 
other  one  cause,  the  way  in  which  a  peo- 
ple gain  their  livelihood  determines  the 
character  of  their  civilization.  It  is  not 
strange,  then,  that  the  radical  industrial 
revolution  of  the  nineteenth  century 
should  have  produced  a  new  civilization 
195 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

in  Europe  and  America  ;  nor  is  it  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  it  is  destined  to  work 
further  changes  the  world  over. 

The  secret  of  its  power  is  the  fact  that 
the  new  industry  lays  hold  of  nature's 
forces.  The  earth  had  always  been  a 
vast  reservoir  of  power  in  the  form  of 
steam,  electricity,  water,  wind,  air,  gas, 
and  the  like.  But  for  thousands  of 
years  this  reservoir  remained  untapped. 
Agriculture,  the  mechanical  arts,  travel 
and  transportation,  all  depended  on  vital 
force — power  derived  from  the  muscles 
of  man  or  beast.  This  was  practically 
the  only  power  under  human  control ; 
and  on  the  part  of  a  large  proportion  of 
mankind  the  struggle  for  existence  taxed 
this  power  to  the  utmost. 

Now  gaining  control  of  natural  forces 
made  it  possible  to  relieve  the  vital 

energies  of  the  race  of  this  deadening 
106 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

tax,  and  thus  marked  a  long  step  in 
advance. 

Vital  energy  may  be  expended  by  the 
muscles,  the  nerves,  or  the  brain  ;  that 
is,  in  muscular  action,  in  feeling,  or  in 
thinking ;  and  of  course  strength  ex- 
pended in  any  one  of  these  three  direc- 
tions is  not  available  for  use  in  either  of 
the  other  two.  When  a  man  is  exhausted 
by  physical  toil,  the  finer  sensibilities  and 
the  power  of  thought  are  well-nigh  dead 
within  him. 

Here  is  the  poet's  picture  of  the  typical 
peasant : 

"  The  emptiness  of  ages  in  his  face, 
And  on  his  back  the  burden  of  the  world. 
Who  made  him  dead  to  rapture  and  despair, 
A  thing  that  grieves  not  and  that  never  hopes, 
Stolid  and  stunned,  a  brother  to  the  ox?" 

Muscular  toil,  prolonged  to  exhaus- 
tion, has  robbed  the  peasant's  brain  and 
197 


THE    TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

nerves  of  that  vital  energy  which  should 
have  given  to  him  man'shigh  prerogatives 
of  thought  and  feeling.  For  thousands 
of  years  the  toiling  millions  have  been 
condemned  by  the  hard  conditions  of  life 
to  an  existence  chiefly  animal.  How 
much  it  meant,  then,  for  the  hope  of 
humanity  when  man  learned  to  harness 
nature's  forces  and  was  thus  released,  not 
from  labor,  but  from  the  curse  of  labor 
— that  excess  of  toil  which  destroys  the 
balance  of  manhood  and  robs  him  of  his 
higher  self  ! 

True,  excessive  toil  still  stunts  human 
life,  even  where  machinery  is  employed  ; 
but  the  tendency  is  to  shorten  hours  of 
labor  and  to  substitute  machinery  for 
muscle,  requiring  of  the  workman  a 
service  which  exercises  his  intelligence 
rather  than  his  strength. 

The  century  before  us  will  certainly 
198 


THE   TWENTIETH    CENTURY 

lay  more  and  more  of  the  drudgery  of 
life  on  the  steel  muscles  of  machinery,  thus 
saving  vital  energy  for  the  development 
of  the  higher  sensibilities  and  the  power 
of  thought. 

Again,  it  has  been  shown  that  gaining 
control  of  nature's  forces  increases  hu- 
man resources  indefinitely,  thus  open- 
ing to  mankind  boundless  possibilities. 
When  muscles  were  the  only  source  of 
productive  power,  the  inexorable  law  of 
nature  measured  food  and  fuel  and  cloth- 
ing by  human  sweat.  Except  in  the 
tropics,  nature  yielded  the  necessaries  of 
life  only  in  exchange  for  vital  energy, 
the  natural  limit  of  which  of  course 
limited  production.  This  energy  was 
exhausted  day  by  day.  So  far  as  pro- 
ductive power  was  concerned,  the  world 
went  to  sleep  every  night  practically 

bankrupt  and  beggared,  and  awoke  every 
199 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

morning  to  begin  life  anew.  To-day,  the 
four  great  manufacturing  nations — the 
United  States,  England,  France,  and 
Germany  —  have  steam  -  power  alone 
greater  than  the  muscular  strength  of  all 
the  male  workmen  of  mankind  ;  and  this 
power  can  be  increased  indefinitely,  as 
fast  as  it  can  be  used. 

It  is  estimated  that  on  the  average  the 
machine  method  is  about  fifty  times  as 
effective  as  the  old  hand  method.  That 
is,  man,  grasping  nature's  lever,  is  about 
fifty  times  as  capable  of  supplying  his 
material  wants  at  the  beginning  of  this 
century  as  he  was  one  hundred  years  ago. 
The  indefinite  increase  of  his  power  has 
enabled  him  to  solve  the  great  problem 
of  production.  It  is  now  possible  to  pro- 
duce every  great  staple  in  larger  supply 
than  the  world  can  consume,  and  when 

the  problem  of  distribution  also  has  been 
200 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

solved,  the  long  and  terrible  struggle  for 
the  necessaries  of  life  will  have  ceased 
forever,  and  the  reasonable  labor  of  all 
will  be  rewarded  with  an  abundance  for 
all. 

The  prodigious  increase  of  man's 
power  over  nature  has  naturally  resulted 
in  an  enormous  increase  of  wealth.  If 
our  wealth  grew  as  rapidly  from  1890  to 
1900  as  during  the  ten  years  preceding, 
we  created  and  saved,  over  and  above  all 
expenditures,  more  every  year  than  the 
entire  wealth  of  the  nation  in  1820  ;  and 
our  accumulations  for  the  ten  years  were 
greater  than  the  estimated  assets  of  the 
whole  world  in  1776. 

This  astonishing  increase  of  wealth 
will  undoubtedly  continue  ;  consider 
how  much  it  means  to  the  general  wel- 
fare. 

I  do  not  need  to  be  reminded  that 
20 1 


THE   TIMES   AND    YOUNG   MEN 

this  wealth  is  not  equitably  distributed, 
and  that  the  congestion  of  wealth  is 
dangerous.  This  danger  emphasizes  the 
necessity  of  applying  the  social  laws  of 
Jesus  to  the  solution  of  the  great  prob- 
lem of  distribution.  But  I  wish  to  point 
out  the  fact  that  under  the  new  industrial 
system,  by  which  society  has  come  to 
live  one  life,  the  enrichment  of  one  is 
for  the  benefit  of  all,  and  that  the  greater 
part  of  a  rich  man's  wealth  serves  the 
public  far  more  than  it  serves  him.  Rich 
men  no  longer  lock  up  their  gold  in  a 
strong  box  or  bury  it  in  the  ground,  as 
was  very  commonly  done  until  modern 
industry  was  developed.  They  invest 
it,  in  order  that  it  may  be  productive ; 
and  the  only  way  to  make  it  pro- 
ductive is  to  make  it  meet  some  de- 
mand of  the  public.  It  builds  railways, 

steamships,    and    factories,   and    opens 
202 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

mines,  and  does  a  thousand  other  things 
for  the  service  of  mankind.  And  it 
cannot  do  one  of  these  things  without 
giving  employment  to  labor,  which 
receives  much  more  of  the  earnings 
than  capital. 

By  reason  of  this  investment  of  cap- 
ital, working  men  to-day  can  travel  with 
a  degree  of  comfort  and  speed  never 
dreamed  of  by  any  prince  a  hundred 
years  ago.  And  they  enjoy  many  lux- 
uries impossible  to  the  greatest  wealth 
of  other  ages.  All  the  millions  of  Croe- 
sus could  not  have  furnished  him  with 
the  morning  paper,  which  we  buy  for  a 
cent  ;  and  we  get  the  news  for  next  to 
nothing  because  many  times  the  millions 
of  Croesus  have  been  invested  in  paper- 
mills,  and  printing  establishments,  and 
type-foundries,  and  mines,  and  wire- 
mills,  and  rolling-mills,  and  telegraph 
203 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

lines,  and  cables,  and  railways,  and  a 
thousand  related  industries. 

No  matter  how  selfish  a  rich  man 
may  be,  though  he  has  a  heart  chiseled 
out  of  Scotch  granite,  and  is  as  covet- 
ous as  the  grave,  he  must  make  his 
wealth  serve  the  public  much  in  order 
to  make  it  serve  himself  a  little. 

It  is  true  the  rich  man  may  invest 
much  in  unproductive  luxury — and  gen- 
erally does — but  one  penalty  of  his  selfish- 
ness is  that  such  investment  is  unproduc- 
tive. As  a  rule,  only  a  small  part  of  a 
man's  wealth  is  permitted  to  be  dead 
capital,  if  he  can  help  it ;  and  the  larger 
his  wealth,  the  smaller  is  the  proportion 
consumed  on  himself,  and  the  greater  is 
the  proportion  which  he  keeps  actively 
at  work  in  the  service  of  society. 

I  am  not  trying  to  show  that  the  in- 
equalities of  wealth  are  not  unjust  or 
204 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

mischievous,  or  that  selfish  luxury  is  not 
blameworthy.  I  am  pointing  out  the 
fact  that  under  the  modern  industrial 
system  it  is  impossible  for  human  greed 
to  monopolize  the  benefits  of  wealth. 

Before  the  modern  organization  of  in- 
dustry there  was  little  opportunity  for 
safe  investment  or,  indeed,  for  investment 
of  any  sort.  Wealth  was,  therefore, 
hoarded.  It  generally  passed  into  cir- 
culation only  through  consumption, 
much  of  which  was  excessive  and  demor- 
alizing. But  under  modern  conditions 
the  great  bulk  of  wealth  seeks  profitable 
investment ;  the  great  bulk  of  it,  there- 
fore, is  engaged  in  the  service  of  society. 
And  whoever  holds  its  titles,  wealth  can- 
not increase,  under  modern  conditions, 
without  ministering  increasingly  to  the 
general  public. 

Moreover,    a    vast     and     increasing 
205 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

amount  is  being  dedicated  solely  to  the 
public  welfare  in  endowment  funds.  The 
productive  funds  of  the  colleges  and 
universities  of  the  United  States,  in  ad- 
dition to  all  that  is  invested  in  grounds, 
buildings,  andgeneral  equipment,  amount 
to  $165,800,000.  Gifts  in  1899  to  our 
educational  institutions,  public  libraries, 
and  charities,  including  no  sums  smaller 
than  $5,000,  amounted  to  $79,278,000  ; 
and  the  total  for  the  present  year  prom- 
ises to  be  still  larger,  for  one  man  alone 
is  reported  to  have  given  $45,000,000. 
Mr.  Carnegie  tosses  millions  as  the 
Titans  tossed  mountains.  It  would  seem 
that  he  is  liable  to  give  $5,000,000  before 
breakfast  almost  any  morning.  What  a 
contrast  with  the  days,  less  than  a  century 
ago,  when  a  well-known  college  was  glad 
to  credit  one  of  its  benefactors  with 

"  One  soup-bone,  one  shilling  "  ! 
206 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

These  vast  and  increasing  endowment 
funds  are  to  minister  to  humanity  un- 
ceasingly. It  is  well  to  give  a  cup  of 
cold  water ;  how  much  better  to  open  a 
fountain  that  shall  flow  on  as  long  as 
pilgrims  pass  this  way !  These  endow- 
ments, which,  like  the  widow's  cruse  of 
oil,  are  ever  spending  but  are  never  spent, 
will  be  an  increasing  benediction.  In  the 
future,  as  in  the  past,  we  shall  have  lean 
years  as  well  as  fat,  but  in  view  of  the 
gifts  of  the  last  ten  years,  and  of  our  in- 
creasing wealth,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to 
suppose  that  during  the  present  century 
there  will  be  added,  on  the  average,  at 
least  $50,000,000  a  year  to  these  per- 
manent endowment  funds  for  the  gen- 
eral good.  By  the  end  of  the  century 
this  would  make  $5,000,000,000,  or  more 
than  twice  the  entire  wealth  of  the  na- 
tion within  the  memory  of  living  men — 
207 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

in  1820.  What  this  means  for  the  prog- 
ress of  the  race  can  hardly  be  measured. 
There  is  scarcely  an  organization  for  the 
advancement  of  learning,  for  the  promo- 
tion of  science,  or  for  the  work  of  phi- 
lanthropy which  is  not  hampered  for  the 
lack  of  funds  ;  and  many  of  them  by 
doubling  their  resources  might  quadruple 
their  results. 

We  have  seen  that  the  industrial  revo- 
lution makes  it  possible  to  release  man's 
vital  energies  for  higher  uses  than  con- 
suming muscular  toil,  and  that  it  has 
opened  the  door  of  an  exhaustless  treas- 
ure-house of  wealth.  As  the  social  con- 
sciousness grows  clearer  and  the  social 
conscience  more  sensitive,  wealth  will  be 
regarded  more  and  more  as  a  trust,  to  be 
administered  for  the  benefit  of  humanity, 
and  the  products  of  labor,  capital,  and 

management   will    be    more   equitably 
208 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

divided.  That  is,  physical  and  moral 
forces  are  now  at  work  in  the  world 
which  will  one  day  enable  labor  to 
share  not  only  the  material  comforts 
and  luxuries  of  life,  but  also  the  de- 
lights of  intellectual  training  and  of 
refined  taste,  thus  giving  to  the  many 
the  blessings  long  confined  to  the 
few.  Let  us  now  turn  to 

//.  The  Influence  of  the  Scientific  Method. 

We  have  seen  how  this  new  method  in 
the  world  of  ideas  has  multiplied  our 
knowledge,  as  a  new  method  in  the 
physical  world  has  increased  our  wealth. 
Down  to  about  the  nineteenth  century 
the  later  scientist  supplanted  the  earlier, 
now  he  supplements  ;  hence  the  real  and 
rapid  progress  of  science.  This  is  a  per- 
manent acquisition  ;  and  this  vast  and 

splendid    accumulation    of   knowledge, 
209 


THE   TIMES  AND   YOUNG   MEN 

like  permanent  endowment  funds,  will 
continually  increase. 

A  very  large  proportion  of  this  knowl- 
edge bears  directly  on  human  well-being. 
Socrates  thought  the  study  of  the  natural 
sciences  was  fruitless  of  practical  results  ; 
and  we  are  told  that  even  Sir  Isaac  New- 
ton failed  to  see  the  industrial  and  com* 
mercial  value  of  scientific  investigation. 
But  to-day  the  world  is  being  revolu- 
tionized by  mechanical,  electrical,  and 
chemical  science. 

If  discovery  were  to  cease  henceforth, 
our  present  acquisitions  of  science  would 
suffice  to  insure  the  rapid  progress  of 
material  civilization  ;  and  of  course  as* 
tonishing  discoveries  await  every  cen- 
tury. It  is  a  law,  applicable  in  science 
as  elsewhere,  that  to  him  who  hath  shall 
be  given.  Every  step  of  progress  makes 

the  next  easier  and  more  sure. 
210 


THE   TWENTIETH    CENTURY 

A  large  part  of  the  world's  progress  in 
the  twentieth  century  will  no  doubt  be 
in  the  art  of  living.  Much  of  the  world's 
misery  has  been  due  to  ignorance  of  the 
laws  of  life,  individual  and  social ;  for 
the  penalties  of  ignorance  are  only  less 
terrible  than  those  of  sin. 

Down  to  the  birth  of  modern  science 
the  race  learned  but  little  from  past 
experience.  For  many  thousands  of 
years  generations  came  and  went,  and, 
generally  speaking,  each  repeated  the 
blunders  of  its  predecessors.  Until  the 
scientific  method  was  developed,  the 
records  of  the  past  were  of  comparatively 
little  value.  The  father  of  history  is 
called  the  father  of  lies.  But  during  the 
nineteenth  century  history  has  been  re- 
written. From  this  time  on,  human 
experience  will  be  scientifically  observed 

and   much   more  accurately   recorded ; 
211 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

and  the  race  will  grow  rich  in  wisdom  as 
never  before. 

How  often  have  we  thought,  if  the 
experience  of  age  and  the  opportunities 
of  youth  could  be  had  at  the  same  time, 
what  splendid  men  and  women  we  should 
make !  In  the  world's  future  the  ex- 
periences of  age  will  be  made  available 
to  youth  in  a  new  way  ;  not  in  proverbs 
which  embalm  both  the  wisdom  and 
the  unwisdom  of  the  past,  nor  in 
quickly  forgotten  exhortations,  but  in 
conclusions  which  are  matters  not 
of  opinion  but  of  scientific  demonstra- 
tion. 

Take  a  single  illustration  from  the  na- 
tional census.  It  is  a  singular  and  in- 
teresting fact  that  our  young  republic 
was  the  first  government  in  the  history 
of  the  world  to  take  a  census  at  stated 

intervals.     Ships  of  state  kept   no  log- 
212 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

book.  Small  wonder  that  so  many  split 
on  the  same  rocks. 

In  social  and  political  science,  to  know 
precisely  where  we  are  is  usually  less  im- 
portant than  to  know  the  direction  in 
which  we  are  moving.  The  vital  thing 
is  often  tendency,  because  it  is  prophetic  ; 
and  to  establish  a  line  of  tendency  we 
must  fix  more  than  one  point ;  hence 
the  value  of  a  base-line.  Now  our  de- 
cennial census  during  the  nineteenth 
century  establishes  a  base-line  a  hundred 
years  long — the  first  in  all  history — from 
which  we  may  measure  in  the  twentieth 
and  in  all  succeeding  centuries. 

Thus  for  the  guidance  both  of  na- 
tional and  of  individual  life  we  are  now 
gaining  a  body  of  knowledge  which  will 
make  the  lamp  of  experience  burn  ever 
more  brightly. 

Again,  the  scientific  method  is  giving 
213 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

to  us  a  new  philanthropy,  based  not  on 
sentiment  but  on  principle  and  on  actual 
knowledge — a  philanthropy  which  aims, 
and  with  reasonable  hope  of  success,  not 
simply  to  mitigate  evils,  but  to  eradicate 
them. 

Much  of  the  philanthropic  effort  of 
the  past  has  only  aggravated  the  evils 
which  it  has  sought  to  alleviate.  The 
English  essayist,  Gregg,  says  that  "  a 
large  part  of  the  mission  of  the  wise  is  to 
counteract  the  efforts  of  the  good."  The 
new  philanthropy  encourages  us  to  hope 
that  the  good  may  yet  become  the  wise. 

Again,  the  scientific  method  has  made 
all  future  generations  its  beneficiaries  by 
establishing  evolution  as  the  method  of 
social  progress — the  natural  method  and, 
therefore,  the  divine  method. 

By  the  law  of  evolution  the  future 

must   be   the    natural  outcome  of   the 
214 


THE   TWENTIETH    CENTURY 

present,  precisely  as  the  present  is  the 
natural  outcome  of  the  past.  We  may 
modify  the  development ;  we  may  help 
or  hinder  it ;  but  we  could  not  break 
with  the  past  if  we  would.  And  if  we 
could,  it  would  be  simply  breaking  the 
stem  of  civilization  from  its  root.  Civili- 
zation would  have  to  go  back  into  the 
ground  as  a  mere  cutting  and  begin  over 
again,  thus  putting  the  world  back  thou- 
sands of  years.  I  suppose  the  golden 
pippin  was  developed  from  the  crab- 
apple.  I  know  it  was  not  secured  by 
cutting  down  the  crab-tree. 

There  are  agitators  not  a  few  who 
bring  a  general  indictment  against  civili- 
zation ;  whose  creed  would  seem  to  be, 
Whatever  is  is  wrong ;  men  who  tell  us 
that  the  nation  would  fare  better  if 
courts  and  churches  were  sunk  in  the 

sea.     It  is  not  surprising  that  those  who 
215 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

wish  to  follow  inclination  without  let  or 
hindrance  should  think  ill  of  civil  and 
religious  restraint. 

"  No  rogue  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law." 

There  are  others,  who  are  to  be  num- 
bered among  the  unwise  good,  who  see 
clearly,  and  feel  keenly,  the  evils  and 
imperfections  of  existing  institutions  ; 
and  who,  in  order  to  destroy  those  evils, 
desire  to  abolish  the  industrial  system, 
the  church,  the  state,  the  family,  the  en- 
tire social  fabric ;  having  in  their  coat- 
pocket  another  social  system,  completely 
elaborated  and  ready  for  instant  substi- 
tution. 

All  such  reformers  stand  in  suffering 
need  of  the  truth  that  evolution  is  the 
method  of  social  progress.  When  the 
scientific  method  is  more  generally 

known,  there  will  be  fewer  patent  sys- 
216 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

terns  for  the  salvation  of  society,  fewer 
fools  with  the  amazing  and  amusing  con- 
ceit to  say,  "  When  the  world  accepts  my 
system,"  and  there  will  be  fewer  fools  to 
run  after  them. 

It  is  reassuring  to  know  that  there  is 
a  Power  in  the  world  which  makes  for 
progress.  Under  its  unseen  guidance 
life  blindly  worked  its  way  upward 
through  many  gradations  to  conscious 
man.  And  this  Power,  which  we  be- 
lieve to  be  personal  and  divine,  is  able 
to  overrule  human  ignorance  and  folly 
and  greed  so  as  to  make  them  tributary 
to  the  progress  of  the  race  ;  and  if  God 
is  able  thus  to  make  the  wrath  of  men 
praise  him,  how  much  more  their  glad 
and  intelligent  co-operation  ? 

Nature  in  all  her  processes  is  ever 
law-abiding  ;  which  is  only  another  way 

of  saying  that  God's  methods  are  always 
217 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG    MEN 

scientific.  If,  therefore,  we  are  to  be 
intelligent  laborers  together  with  him, 
we  also  must  be  scientific.  The  devel- 
opment of  the  scientific  method,  there- 
fore, by  enabling  man  to  co-operate 
intelligently  with  God,  will  give  a  new 
impetus  to  the  world's  progress.  To 
impulse  it  will  lend  guidance,  to  pur- 
pose it  will  afford  wisdom,  to  zeal  it 
will  add  knowledge,  thus  forbidding  a 
noble  enthusiasm  to  degenerate  into 
fanaticism.  Let  us  consider, 

///.    The  Influence  of  the  New  Social 
Ideal. 

Our  ideals  at  the  same  time  point  out 
the  direction  of  progress  and  furnish 
the  incentive  to  it.  They  indicate  our 
actual  measure  and  our  possible  growth. 
That  in  man  which  responds  to  the 

illimitable  suggests  the  boundlessness  of 
218 


THE   TWENTIETH    CENTURY 

his  own  nature  and  destiny.  The  herd 
upon  the  headland  crops  the  grass  in- 
different to  the  sea,  and  chews  the  con- 
tented cud  all  unconscious  of  the  stars ; 
but  there  is  something  in  man  which 
responds  to  the  exalted  and  the  im« 
measurable.  The  depths  of  the  sky  and 
the  shoreless  ocean  invite  us.  Even  if 
our  body  is  a  ball  and  chain  which  pre- 
vents our  accepting  the  invitation,  we 
are  at  least  capable  of  hearing  it.  If 
the  infinite  and  absolute  make  us  con- 
scious of  our  own  littleness,  they  also 
mingle  with  this  painful  sense  of  limita- 
tion a  consciousness  of  possibilities  as 
yet  unrealized ;  and  of  these  unrealized 
possibilities  the  noblest  and  most  attract- 
ive constitute  our  ideal. 

I  suppose  an  ideal  is  possible  only  to 
self-conscious  life ;   and   a   well-defined 

social  ideal  becomes  possible  only  when 
219 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

society  arrives  at  a  clear  self-conscious- 
ness. In  an  individualistic  civilization 
such  a  social  ideal  was  hardly  possible. 
But  the  industrial  revolution,  by  creating 
a  social  civilization,  is  producing  a  social 
self-consciousness ;  and  the  scientific 
method,  by  conferring  on  man  the  reins 
of  power  and  the  key  of  knowledge,  has 
kindled  new  hopes  for  humanity,  and 
we  now  dare  to  look  forward  to  a  day 
when  poverty  will  be  banished,  and  igno- 
rance dispelled,  and  disease  controlled. 
Thus  the  golden  age,  which  our  fathers 
saw  in  the  past,  has  been  transferred  to 
the  future  and  has  become  our  social 
ideal. 

As  the  progress  of  industry  depends 
on  specialization  and  co-ordination,  so 
the  progress  of  civilization  depends  on 
the  individualizing  of  the  individual  and 

the  higher  organization  of  society.  Some 
220 


THE   TWENTIETH    CENTURY 

have  imagined  that  the  two  lines  of 
progress  were  mutually  destructive,  but 
instead  they  are  mutually  dependent. 
An  organism  implies  different  organs 
with  different  functions.  Only  so  far  as 
men  are  differentiated  does  social  organ- 
ization become  possible  ;  and  as  society 
becomes  more  highly  organized,  the  in- 
dividual lives  a  larger  life,  attains  a 
higher  development.  Thus  the  race, 
like  the  individual,  proceeds  on  two 
feet — an  upward  step  by  one  prepares 
for  an  upward  step  by  the  other. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  individual  the  race  has  in 
a  sense  reached  its  culmination.  That 
is,  a  few  individual  types  have  been 
practically  perfected,  and  future  gains 
along  the  line  of  individual  development 
will  consist  in  bringing  the  many  to  a 
closer  approximation  of  the  few. 

221 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

Thus  the  future  will  probably  furnish 
no  finer  physical  types  than  many  which 
have  already  appeared,  but  there  is  im- 
measurable room  for  the  improvement 
of  the  general  physique  of  the  race.  In 
one  of  the  plays  of  Aristophanes  an 
Athenian  woman  thus  addressed  Lam- 
pito,  a  Lacedaemonian  wife  :  "  O  dearest 
Spartan,  O  Lampito,  welcome !  How 
beautiful  you  look,  sweetest  one,  how 
fresh  your  complexion  !  You  could 
throttle  an  ox."  "  Yes,"  she  replied, 
"  I  think  I  could."  We  may  not  hope 
to  surpass  the  rare  combination  of 
strength  and  beauty  which  characterized 
the  bodily  perfection  of  the  Spartan 
youth  of  both  sexes,  but  how  much  it 
would  mean  if  all  mankind  even  re- 
motely approximated  it !  It  is  some- 
thing to  have  a  healthy  admiration  for 
it  and  to  aim  at  it.  There  is  said  to  be 

222 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

an  old  English  book  of  etiquette  which 
recommends  blood-letting  to  ladies  just 
before  going  into  society,  in  order  to 
present  "  the  pallid  complexion  so  much 
admired  by  the  opposite  sex."  We 
have  made  considerable  progress  since 
then. 

There  seems  to  be  no  tendency  in  the 
uplift  of  modern  civilization  to  produce 
intellectual  alps,  whose  altitude  surpasses 
the  great  peaks  of  the  past.  The  nine- 
teenth century  gave  to  the  world  no 
Shakspeare  nor  Dante,  no  Aristotle  nor 
Plato,  no  Paul  nor  Moses  ;  but  there  has 
been  a  great  leveling  up,  and  this  pro- 
cess, we  cannot  doubt,  will  continue  un- 
til the  low-lying  marshes  of  ignorance 
and  the  narrow  valleys  of  prejudice  have 
become  table-lands,  broad  and  high, 
swept  by  free  winds  and  flooded  with  the 

sunlight  of  truth. 

223 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

Doubtless  in  the  century  before  us  the 
people — the  "  plain  people,"  as  Lincoln 
loved  to  call  them — are  to  move  up,  up 
toward  the  splendid  types  of  manhood  and 
womanhood  already  developed,  which  are 
the  supreme  glory  of  mankind.  And  this 
higher  development  of  a  multitude  of  in- 
dividuals will  be  accompanied  by  a  vastly 
higher  organization  of  society,  a  much 
closer  approximation  to  our  social  ideal. 

Of  the  form  of  this  higher  and  closer 
organization  of  society  it  would  be  idle 
to  attempt  a  forecast.  It  will  not  be 
modeled  on  the  theories  of  any  man  or 
school.  It  will  be  a  growth.  We  may 
be  sure  that  social  self-consciousness  will 
gain  increasing  distinctness,  and  with  it 
the  social  conscience  which  is  now  feeble 
will  grow  strong. 

When  the  individual  came  to  full  self- 
consciousness  in  the  Renaissance  and  the 
224 


THE   TWENTIETH    CENTURY 

Reformation,  he  became  aware  of  his 
personal  worth  and  of  his  personal  ac- 
countability. His  watchword,  therefore, 
became  "  Rights."  As  society  gains  self- 
consciousness,  individuals  perceive  that 
they  are  a  part  of  one  great  life ;  the 
general  good  and  the  rights  of  others 
grow  more  real  and  more  important. 
The  watchword,  therefore,  becomes 
"  Duties." 

As  our  social  consciousness  grows, 
men  will  better  appreciate  their  interde- 
pendence, their  mutual  interests.  Rich 
men  will  more  clearly  understand  that 
their  wealth  could  never  have  been  ac- 
quired but  for  society,  and  that  having 
been  gained,  it  would  be  quite  worthless 
but  for  society.  There  will,  therefore, 
be  a  growing  appreciation  of  the  fact 
that  wealth,  like  office,  is  a  public  trust, 

and  that  the  man  who  devotes  a  fortune 
225 


THE   TIMES  AND   YOUNG   MEN 

to  personal  ends  is  as  unsocial,  as  unpa 
triotic,  and  as  worthy  of  popular  scorn 
as  a  man  who  uses  a  public  office  for 
private  ends. 

Already  men  of  wealth  are  beginning 
to  accept  this  view  and  to  act  on  it ;  and 
when  that  which  is  now  the  exception 
shall  have  become  the  rule,  the  devotion 
of  prodigious  sums  to  the  general  wel- 
fare will  produce  far-reaching  results  in 
elevating  the  multitude.  For  gold,  when 
mixed  with  wisdom,  works  a  thousand 
miracles.  It  may  be  transmuted  not 
only  into  all  tangible  good,  but  also  into 
all  the  virtues. 

Mr.  Carnegie's  gift  of  many  millions 
for  public  libraries  affords  a  striking  ex- 
ample both  of  the  sense  of  responsi- 
bility of  wealth  and  of  its  wise  adminis- 
tration for  the  benefit  of  the  million.  A 

book  is  the  greatest  leveler  ;  it  is  utterly 
226 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

democratic.  AsShakspeare  makes  Buck- 
ingham say  in  scorn  of  Wolsey,  "A  beg- 
gar's book  outworths  a  noble's  blood." 
The  book-cover  is  a  door  without  bolt 
or  bar,  which  swings  open  to  all  alike, 
admitting  the  plowboy  and  the  shop- 
girl to  intimacy  with  the  world's  "  Four 
Hundred." 

Knowledge  for  all,  like  plenty  for  all, 
is  essential  to  the  universal  well-being 
which  alone  can  realize  the  new  social 
ideal.  But  it  is  quite  possible  for  men  to 
be  well  fed,  well  educated,  and  at  the  same 
time  frigidly  selfish.  Winter  is  not  winter 
for  lack  of  light.  It  is  the  sun's  heat- 
rays  which  work  the  miracle  of  spring 
and  give  back  life  to  field  and  forest. 
There  must  be  heat  as  well  as  light,  mo- 
tive as  well  as  knowledge,  love  as  well 
as  truth.  Learning  is  not  life.  Many 

have  eaten  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  who 

227 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

have  never  tasted  of  the  tree  of  life. 
Adam  and  Eve  increased  their  knowl- 
edge, but  lost  their  Paradise  notwith- 
standing. Knowledge  is  the  knowledge 
of  "  good  and  evil? 

It  is  well,  then,  for  the  world  that  with 
increasing  intelligence  there  is  a  grow- 
ing altruism.  The  heart  of  humanity  is 
becoming  less  hard.  The  tension  of 
modern  life  has  wrought  a  change  in  our 
nervous  system.  Our  sensibilities  are 
become  more  tender.  A  few  genera- 
tions ago  the  highest  and  most  Christian 
court  in  the  world  condemned  men  to 
be  boiled  to  death  in  oil.  Now,  cruelty 
to  a  dumb  animal  is  a  crime.  We  are 
more  considerate  of  dogs  than  our 
fathers  were  of  men.  This  altruism  is 
something  new,  certainly  in  degree,  and 
I  think  in  kind.  There  have  been  many 

in  the  past  who  for  the  love  of  God  or 
228 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

country  have  suffered  for  their  fellow 
men.  But  there  are  those  to-day  who 
are  giving  themselves  as  living  sacrifices 
to  relieve  human  misery  and  degrada- 
tion, who  seem  to  be  actuated  not  by 
motives  of  religion  or  patriotism,  but  by 
an  enthusiasm  for  humanity.  Enthusi- 
astic devotion  to  art  and  science  "  for 
their  own  sake  "  is  common.  We  have 
seen  Agassiz  dangling  at  the  end  of  a 
rope  hundreds  of  feet  down  a  fissure  in 
an  Alpine  glacier.  I  have  heard  of  a 
conchologist  who  is  devoting  his  life  not 
to  the  study  of  clam-shells,  which  is  too 
large  a  field,  but  to  the  fresh-water  clam. 
Now  men  are  discovering  that  a  child  is 
as  well  worth  prolonged  study,  is  quite 
as  worthy  to  inspire  enthusiasm,  as  a 
fresh-water  clam  !  I  know  men  and 
women  who  are  devoting  themselves  to 

humanity,  not  for  God's  sake   nor  for 
229 


THE   TIMES  AND   YOUNG   MEN 

country's  sake,  but  for  humanity's 
sake. 

Many  of  the  present-day  evils  are 
due  to  bringing  the  old  individualistic 
spirit  over  into  the  new  social  condi- 
tions. The  motto  of  that  spirit  was 
"  Every  man  for  himself."  Every  angel 
for  himself  would  ruin  heaven.  The 
normal  spirit  of  the  new  social  civiliza- 
tion would  express  itself  in  the  motto, 
Each  for  all  and  all  for  each  ;  and  this 
new  altruism  is  inspired  by  that  spirit 
of  service  and  sacrifice. 

Prof.  Huxley  declared  the  principle 
of  self-sacrifice,  succeeding  the  struggle 
for  existence,  to  be  the  law  of  progress 
for  civilized  man.  Competition  ulti- 
mately works  out  a  co-ordination  and 
unification,  in  which  co-operation  natu- 
rally supersedes  competition  as  the  law 

of  life  and  of  progress.    The  men  of  al- 

230 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

truistic  spirit  to-day  are  the  pioneers  of 
that  higher  stage  of  civilization  which 
Prof.  Huxley  anticipated. 

A  society  from  which  have  been  elim- 
inated ignorance  and  selfishness  and, 
therefore,  poverty  and  sin  and  wretched- 
ness, begins  to  seem  to  men  not  simply 
a  far-off  abstract  possibility  to  be 
dreamed  of,  but  an  infinite  good  to  be 
struggled  for — an  ideal  capable  of  being 
realized,  and  so  glorious  that  it  is  in- 
spiring passionate  longing  and  persist- 
ent endeavor. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  this  ideal 
will  not  be  realized  in  the  twentieth 
century  or  for  many  more  ;  but  the  fact 
that  such  an  ideal  seems  no  longer  Uto- 
pian will  make  it  a  mighty  influence  for 
good  during  the  century  to  come. 

My  confidence  that  this  ideal  will  be 

ultimately  realized  on  earth  is  based  not 
231 


THE   TIMES  AND   YOUNG   MEN 

simply  on  the  bounty  which  organized 
industry  brings,  the  priceless  treasures 
of  knowledge  which  the  scientific 
method  gives,  and  the  social  ideal  with 
which  the  new  altruism  glows.  These 
powerful  influences  are  re-enforced  by 
that  which  is  deepest  and  highest  in 
human  nature,  viz.,  religion.  Let  us 
consider,  then,  lastly,  and  very  briefly, 

IV.    The  Influence  of  the  New  Chris- 
tianity. 

We  are  gaining,  not  a  new  Christian, 
ity ,  but  a  new  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity; and  this  conception  is  "new" 
only  because  it  is  so  old.  We  are  get- 
ting back  to  the  Christianity  of  Christ. 
Protestantism,  as  we  have  seen,  is  indi. 
vidualistic,  as  was  also  the  old  civiliza- 
tion. It  was  natural,  and  indeed  inevi- 
table, that  from  such  a  point  of  view 
232 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

men  should  look  on  Christianity  as  in- 
dividualistic. We  are  now  beginning  to 
see  that  Jesus  aimed  both  at  individual 
and  social  regeneration,  and  that  the 
"  kingdom  of  heaven "  of  which  he 
talked  so  much  was  not  the  home  of 
the  blessed  dead,  but  was  his  social  ideal, 
to  be  realized  here  in  the  earth  when 
his  prophetic  prayer  shall  have  found 
its  fulfilling  answer,  and  God's  will  is 
done  in  earth  even  as  it  is  done  in 
heaven.  We  are  beginning  to  see  that 
Christ's  teaching  was  not  a  circle  struck 
around  the  individual  as  its  center,  but 
an  ellipse  drawn  around  the  individual 
and  society  as  its  two  foci. 

This  correction  of  our  understanding 
cannot  fail  to  have  a  profound  effect 
on  Christian  belief,  aim  and  method. 

It  is  bringing  religion  down  from 
heaven  to  earth,  and  making  it  a  mat- 
233 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

ter  of  life  as  well  as  of  death,  and  of 
seven  days  in  the  week  rather  than  one. 
It  is  wiping  out  the  old  and  false  and 
pernicious  distinction  between  the  "  sa- 
cred "  and  the  "  secular,"  and  teaching 
us  that 

"There  are  no  gentile  oaks,  no  pagan  pines  ; 
The  grass  beneath  our  feet  is  Christian  grass." 

It  is  awaking  the  conscience  of  the 
church  to  the  fact  that  the  second 
great  command  of  Christ  is  as  binding 
as  the  first,  that  it  is  her  duty  to  incul- 
cate and  exemplify  the  one  as  well  as 
the  other ;  and  thus  to  include  in  her 
aim  the  salvation  of  society  as  well  as 
that  of  the  individual. 

We  are  beginning  to  see  that  Christ's 
brotherhood  of  man  is  the  new  altru- 
ism, springing  not  from  common  inter- 
est but  from  a  common  Fatherhood ; 
beginning  to  see  that  Christ's  kingdom 
234 


THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

of  God  is  the  new  social  ideal,  spiritual- 
ized and  glorified  ;  and  that  the  three 
fundamental  laws  of  the  kingdom  which 
he  laid  down,  viz.,  those  of  service,  of 
sacrifice,  and  of  love,  are  precisely  the 
laws  by  the  application  of  which  society 
must  be  saved  and  the  new  social  ideal 
realized. 

The  old  conception  of  Christianity 
was  embodied  by  the  genius  of  Bunyan 
in  his  wonderful  allegory,  in  which  the 
Christian  life  is  represented  as  a  flight 
from  a  doomed  city,  the  destination  of 
which  is  a  place  of  personal  safety,  while 
the  city  and  its  inhabitants  are  left  to 
their  own  utter  destruction. 

In  what  strong  and  beautiful  contrast 
was  the  spirit  shown  by  Lord  Shaftes- 
bury  when  once  talking  with  Frances 
Power  Cobbe  in  regard  to  the  wrongs 
of  working  girls.  With  tears  in  his  eyes 
235 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

and  with  a  trembling  voice,  he  said  to 
her,  "  When  I  think  that  I  am  growing 
old  and  that  I  have  not  long  to  live,  I 
hope  it  is  not  wrong,  but  I  cannot  bear 
to  die  and  leave  the  world  with  so  much 
wretchedness  in  it."  The  wretchedness 
from  which  so  many  would  flee  was 
precisely  that  which  bound  him  to  the 
earth.  He  would  fain  stay  so  long  as 
he  could  relieve  any  measure  of  the 
world's  woe,  and  bring  heaven  a  little 
nearer  earth.  That,  to  my  mind,  is  a 
far  more  Christian  conception  of  life  and 
more  heroic  than  that  which  is  presented 
in  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress."  Let  us  not 
be  impatient  for  heaven.  It  will  keep. 
Besides,  heaven,  like  happiness,  is  most 
surely  gained  when  sought  indirectly. 

There  are  evils  enough  in  the  world 
to  test  our  heroism,  and  to  inspire  all  the 

sacrifice  of  which  we  are  capable ;  and 
236 


THE   TWENTIETH    CENTURY 

there  is  not  the  slightest  danger  but  that 
they  will  last  the  youngest  of  us  through 
a  long  life.  If  space  permitted,  they 
might  appropriately  have  a  place  in  our 
twentieth-century  survey.  Their  shadows 
are  dark,  and  many  believe  that  they  are 
growing  darker.  But  if  so,  it  is  only 
because  the  light  is  growing  brighter. 
The  electric  lamp  casts  a  much  blacker 
shadow  than  the  tallow  dip.  Many  of 
these  evils  are  incident  to  the  present 
stage  of  civilization  and  will  pass  as  it 
passes. 

Possibly  some  of  us  question,  after 
all,  whether  the  new  civilization,  taking 
its  good  and  evil  together,  is  an  advance 
on  the  old  which  it  superseded.  We 
perhaps  complain  with  Ruskin  and 
Carlyle  that  the  present  age  is  common- 
place and  sordid,  and  that  commercialism 
has  robbed  life  of  its  imagination  and 
237 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

poetry ;  and  we  look  back  with  regretful 
admiration  at  the  faith  and  loyalty  and 
personal  daring  of  the  Age  of  Chivalry  ^ 
which  was  supplanted  by  the  age  of  or- 
ganized industry.  Do  we  forget  that  the 
distant  purple  mountains  on  the  horizon 
of  history  were  not  purple  when  the  race 
toiled  over  them  ?  It  was  very  common 
daylight  which  shone  upon  their  rugged 
rocks,  over  which  the  common  people 
crawled  with  blistering  and  bleeding 
feet.  The  beauties  of  the  old  civiliza- 
tion were  for  the  few,  the  blessings  of 
the  new  are  for  the  many. 

Moreover,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to 
believe  that  all  which  was  noblest  in  the 
old  civilization  will  yet  return.  The 
tides  of  faith  which  long  had  ebbed  even 
now  begin  again  to  flow — not  the  super- 
stitious faith  of  the  dark  ages,  which  fled 

before  the  light  of  modern  science,  but 
238 


THE   TWENTIETH   CENTURY 

a  rational  faith,  which  can  abide  the  lighl 
because  it  has  learned  to  believe  in  3 
God  of  law  and  a  God  of  love. 

Surely  no  age  can  be  commonplace  or 
sordid  or  unheroic  which  is  moved  by 
a  great  and  noble  passion.  A  burning 
enthusiasm  for  humanity,  which  gladly 
suffers  in  order  to  serve,  shall  bring 
another  Age  of  Chivalry,  shall  inspire 
imagination  and  poetry  anew,  and  lead 
forth  nobler  crusades  against  every 
wrong. 

Let  us  neither  sigh  for  the  past  nor 
fear  for  the  future.  The  new  century 
will  bring  new  perplexities,  but  they  will 
be  the  problems  of  progress,  which  must 
ever  be  solved  by  more  progress.  The 
backward  look  never  sees  the  way  out. 
Let  us  face  the  future  with  courage  and 
with  faith,  for  of  all  the  ages  that  have 
come  and  gone,  not  one  has  had  such 
239 


THE   TIMES   AND   YOUNG   MEN 

hope   for    humanity   as   the   twentieth 
century. 

"God's  in  his  heaven, 
All's  right  with  the  world." 

He  is  not  going  to  be  beaten  in  the 
great  conflict  of  the  ages.  The  very 
stars  in  their  courses  fight  with  him 
against  the  world's  evils,  which  have 
their  day,  but  have  their  doom,  uttered 
alike  by  reason  and  revelation,  by  science 
and  faith. 

With  Him,  the  sands  of  whose  hour- 
glass are  the  circling  stars,  there  is 
neither  haste  nor  delay.  From  age  to  age 
he  is  surely  working  out  his  purposes  of 
love ;  and  if,  as  Paul  says,  we  are 
workers  together  with  him  unto  the 
kingdom,  we  shall  certainly,  in  the  full- 
ness of  time,  rejoice  with  him  in  the  new 
heavens  and  the  new  earth  wherein 

dwelleth  righteousness. 
240 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Agassiz 229 

Age,  The  Golden 220 

Altruism 227-229 

How  made  possible 84-97 

Amusements 150-156 

Rational 154,  155 

Law  of  service  and 155,  156 

Angels,  Sex  of 180 

Apostles'  Creed 165 

Theology  of  the 164-166 

Aristophanes 222 

Articulates 90-92 

Asceticism 167-171 

Beecher,  Dr.  Lyman 153 

Body 125-130 

Abuse  of 125 

Soul  and 127 

Law  of  service  applied  to 127-130 

Browning 240 

Buckle 194 

Bunyan 235,  236 

Burke 103,  104 

Capital,  Combination  of 51,  52 

and  labor,  The  strife  between 1 12,  1 13 

241 


INDEX 

PACK 

£arlyle 24,  195,  237 

Carnegie,  Gifts  of 206,  226 

Cells,  Living 106-110 

Social ; 108-1 10 

Census,  The  decennial 212,  213 

Change  in  physical  world 27-38 

Changes  in  the  nineteenth  century 25 

Christ,  Point  of  view  of 57-Q1 

Christianity  of. 232-240 

Christianity,  A  new  conception  of 54-6i,  232-240 

Fundamental  facts  of 44 

Church,  Joining  the 182 

Point  of  view  of  the 55-5 7 

Weakness  of  the 179 

Cities,  Misgovernment  of. no,  in 

Civilization  determined  by  industry 27,  28 

Progress  of 220,  221 

Comte 194 

Croesus 203 

Cross,  Meaning  of. 79,  80 

Damascus,  Paul's  escape  from 148,  149 

Discontent,  Popular 103 

Dodge,  Grace  H 141 

Drummond,  Prof.  Henry 84-86 

Dust,  Uses  of. 62-63 

Education 130-136 

Different  aims  in 130,  131 

Law  of  service  and 135,  136 

Edwards,  Jonathan 190 

End,  The  supreme 131-135 

Endowments,  College 206,  207 

Energy,  Vital 196,  197 

Enthusiasm  for  humanity 239 

242 


INDEX 

PACK 

Evolution 73.  74 

Method  of 84-97 

Social  progress  and 214-218 

Expenditure 156-162 

Law  of  service  and 160,  162 

Fairbairn,  Principal 46 

"  Flesh,"  as  used  in  New  Testament 125,  126 

French  revolutionists 103,  104 

Funds,  College  endowment 206 

Garibaldi 93 

Golden  Age 220 

Greeks,  Bodily  perfection  of 129 

Gregg 214 

Grotius 121,  122 

Guizot 194 

Hegel 194 

Heroism  in  religion 180-183 

Homespun,  Age  of 32,  33 

Humanity,  Enthusiasm  for 239 

Huxley 133,  230 

Ideal,  New  social 218-232 

Ideals 218,  219 

Ignorance,  Penalties  of 211 

Industrial  revolution ;  how  caused 29 

Influence  of,  in  future 194-209 

Results  of 29-38 

Jerusalem,  The  New 147,  148 

Kingdom  of  God 57~6i,  184,  185 

Entrance  into  the 188-191 

Love,  a  law  of  the 96,  97 

Philosophy  of  life  and  the 187 

Sacrifice,  a  law  of  the 78-81 

Service,  a  law  of  the 71 

243 


INDEX 

PACK 

Labor  and  capital,  The  strife  between 112,  113 

Benefited  by  capital 202-205 

Organization  of 51 

Lincoln 224 

Linnaeus 43,  44.  47 

Living,  Art  of. 21 1 

Love,  Disinterested 95 

Family,  expanded  into  patriotism 93 

God's 175,  176 

Law  of 83-97 

Laws  of  service  and  sacrifice  vitalized  by . .  .94,  114 

Lowell 175 

McKinley,  William 145 

Method,  The  scientific. 209-217 

Missionaries,  Heroism  of 180 

Money 156,  157 

Mud-wasp 86-89 

Mysticism.. 171-173 

Natural  laws,  laws  of  the  Kingdom 59-6 1 

Newspaper,  illustrative  of  modern  civilization 35,  36 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac 210 

Occupation 137-150 

Choice  of 143-145 

Law  of  service  and 146-150 

Usefulness  of 143-145 

Ocean,  the  world's  filter 65 

Old  men  and  young  men  contrasted 23 

Parasites 68,  69,  137-141 

Pan 50 

Pascal 106 

Paul's  escape  from  Damascus 148,  149 

Peabody,  George 144 

Philanthropy,  A  new 214 

244 


INDEX 

PACK 

"  Pillar  saints  " 168 

Play,  Philosophy  of 15 1-154 

Principle,  Stability  of 17,  19 

Problem,  The  social 98-1 14 

Problems  of  society  defined 101 

the  individual  defined 101 

Problem  of  production  solved 31,  200 

Protestantism  individualistic 232 

Proudhon 99 

Public  opinion 49 

Religion  and  Theology,  Difference  between 43-48 

Resources,  Increase  of  human 199-201 

Religion,  Effeminate 179,  180 

Heroism  in 180-183 

Laws  of  love,  service  and  sacrifice  applied 

to 163-191 

Three  types  of  superficial 167-183 

Ritualism 173-183 

Ruskin 237 

Sacrifice,  A  circle  of ,  76-78 

Law  of 73-82,  230 

Law  of  life 106-108 

Promotion  by 75,  76,  81 

Separated  from  love  and  service 167-171 

Wasted 106-108 

Saloon in,  112 

Scientific  method 4-42,  209-217 

Seneca 118 

Service,  Circles  of 64-67 

Conscious  and  unconscious 70,  71 

Distinguished  from  worship. . .  .177,  178,  180,  181 

Law  of 62-72 

Law  of  life 105,  106 

245 


INDEX 

PACE 

Service,  Seeming  exceptions  to  law  of 68,  69 

Social  law 105 

Sex  of  church- membership 179,  180 

Shaftesbury 235,  236 

Shakspeare 24,  227 

Shaler,  Prof. 86-89,  9*>  92 

Simon  the  "  Stylite  " 168 

Social  conscience 50,  224 

Ideal,  The  new 218-232 

Laws 104-114 

Problem 98-114 

Question,  The,  defined 101,  102 

Questions 98-101 

Revolution 34-3^ 

Socrates 210 

Southey 39 

Spencer,  Herbert 104,  194 

Stewardship 158 

Stowe,  Prof 153 

Student  volunteers 180 

Survival  of  fittest 73,  74 

Tendencies,  Importance  of 213 

Time,  Use  of "7-12$ 

Value  of 118-123 

Law  of  service  applied  to 123,  124 

Tithes 159,  160 

Tennyson 74,  77,  94 

Terence 15 

Theology  and  religion,  Difference  between 43-48 

Progress  of 104 

Toil,  Effect  of  excessive 196-198 

Training,  The  best  physical • 129,  130 

Truth,  Importance  of  holding 164 

246 


INDEX 

PAGE 

Twentieth  century,  Outlook  of. 192-240 

Undercurrent  of  civilization 25,  38,  49-53 

Vertebrates 90-92 

Vitality  versus  muscle 129,  130 

Volunteers,  Student 180 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russel 63 

Water,  Many  uses  of 64 

Watts,  Isaac 138,  139 

Wealth  of  American  people  in  1820 31 

Increase  of 201 

Serves  society 202-205 

Wind,  Uses  of 65,  66 

Young  men  and  old  men  contrasted 23 

247 


An  Encyclopedia  and  Year  Book  of 

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JOSIAH    STRONG,  Editor 

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THE  NEXT  GREAT 
AWAKENING 


By  Rev.  Josiah  Strong,  D.D. 

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There  were  great  religious  awakenings  in  the  six- 
teenth, seventeenth,  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries.  In  each  instance  these  great  awaken- 
ings came  in  connection  with  the  preaching  of 
a  neglected  scriptural  truth  or  truths,  which 
were  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the 
times.  The  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century 
naturally  suggests  to  the  churches  a  new  forward 
movement. 

Tht  late  Pret.  JOHN  H.  BARROWS,  of  Oberlin  College: 

" '  The  Next  Great  Awakening  '  has  moved  me  deeply.  It 
is  written  in  Dr.  Strong's  best  and  most  vigorous  style.  The 
book  not  only  stirs  the  conscience  and  gladdens  the  heart  with 
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Alex.  V.  G.  Allen,  Chester,  Nova  Scotia,  of  the  Episco- 
pal Theological  Seminary  at  Cambridge  : 

"  Every  one  must  be  charmed,  I  think,  with  its  fairness,  its 
moderation,  its  genial  and  Christian  tone.  The  only  fault  is 
the  book  is  too  small,  too  short.  When  the  man  and  the  sub- 
ject met  as  in  this  case  the  result  should  have  been  more 
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classic  on  the  subject." 

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tories of  the  several  denominations  written 
by  the  leading  historians  of  each  sect.  The 
books  will  average  only  about  forty  thou- 
sand words  and  are  calculated  to  interest 
the  average  church  member  as  well  as  the 
student  of  Church  history. 

Dr.  Vedder  is  an  authority  on  American  Church 
History  and  a  specialist  in  the  history  of 
the  Baptists.  He  has  a  sprightly  but  vig- 
orous style,  and  a  manner  of  expressing  his 
ideas  which  is  pleasing  in  its  clearness  and 
brevity. 

The  Baker  &  Taylor  Co.,  Publishers 

33-37  East  I7th  St.,  Union  Sq.  North,  New  York 


LEAVENING    THE 
NATION 


THE  STORY  OF  AMERICAN  HOME  MISSIONS 

BY 

DR.  J.  B.  CLARK 

Secretary  of  the  Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society 

Full  i2mo,  illustrated,  net,  $1.25 

Student's  Edition,  red  paper,  net,  BOe. 

For  some  time  there  has  been  felt  among  all 
church  workers  a  need  of  a  careful  history 
of  American  home-missionary  work.  For- 
eign Missions  have  had  many  historians, 
but  Home  Missions  have  had  none.  Dr. 
J.  B.  Clark,  whose  work  in  the  home-mis- 
sionary field  is  known  throughout  the  coun- 
try, was  granted  by  his  Board  a  leave  of 
absence  in  which  to  prepare  a  careful  non- 
sectarian  history  of  the  work.  His  book  is 
carefully  written  with  the  assistance  of  the 
secretaries  of  the  Boards  of  other  denomi- 
nations and  will  make  a  standard  history  of 
home-missionary  work.  At  the  same  time 
it  is  so  popular  in  its  style  as  to  entirely 
fulfill  the  requirements  of  the  sub-title, 
"The  Story  of  American  Home  Missions." 

The  Baker  &  Taylor  Co.,  Publishers 

33-37  East  i/th  St.,  Union  Sq.  North,  New  York 


tc. 


